Source: http://lopezirl.com/2012/12/19/a-condition-necromancers-guide-to-pve/
A Condition Necromancer’s Guide to PvE
Introduction
Hello, my name is Lopez. I’m an avid Guild Wars 2 fan. Before Guild Wars 2, I played almost every other major MMORPG release, from World of Warcraft to Star Wars: The Old Republic to The Secret World. When I focused on World of Warcraft, I achieved gladiator on my death knight for seasons 8, 9, and 10 of arenas.
In Guild Wars 2, I decided to focus on both PvE and PvP content on my condition necromancer. I used this build to get to lv. 30 fractals within a week of their release. At this point, I feel like I’ve built up enough experience to write a guide, so here it is! This guide will mostly focus on dungeons, fractals, and small-scale event farming, mostly because all the other PvE content is relatively simple enough to not require a guide.
If you have any questions, feel free to send me a message on Twitter (@LopezIRL), in-game (Lopez), or email me ([email protected]).
Table of Contents
I. Why Condition Necromancer?
II. Weapon and Death Shroud Abilities
III. Traits
IV. Heals, Utility Skills, and Elite Skills
V. Gear
VI. Consumables
VII. Skill Priority
VIII. Use of Death Shroud
IX. Tips
X. Frequently Asked Questions
XI. Revisions and Additions
I. Why Condition Necromancer?
In one word, Epidemic.
Condition necromancer has the best area-of-effect (AOE) potential in the game. With Epidemic, it can spread all the conditions on a target to up to five other targets. Not only can this be used for massive AOE damage if it spreads 25 stacks of bleeds, some stacks of confusion, burning, and poison, but it also has the benefit of spreading debuffs like blind, chilled, cripple, fear, immobilize, vulnerability, and weakness.
To top it off, condition necromancers can do solid single-target damage. With might from Blood is Power, each of my bleeds do about 149 damage every second. Since I can typically stack 10 to 16 bleeds, that’s 1490 to 2384 damage a second. That’s not even counting my direct damage from attacks and my other condition damage from poison.
That single-target damage also comes with the added benefit of being executed from range. While direct-damage builds tend to sacrifice damage at range, condition builds keep the same DPS and sacrifice burst instead. Being able to keep maximum range is a massive boost to survivability and damage potential. It lets a condition necromancer overcome many boss mechanics while doing maximum DPS.
By itself, necromancer also has a lot of useful utility. It constantly applies poison, which does damage and reduces the effectiveness of healing abilities by 33 percent. Wells can be used to AOE heal, convert conditions on an ally to boons, convert boons on an enemy to conditions, perpetually blind, and apply vulnerability, all while giving protection through traits. Corruption skills can be used to apply weakness and convert boons on an enemy to conditions. Signet of Undeath is an in-combat revive.
Then there’s Death Shroud. This ability can be used every 10 seconds at the expenditure of life force, which can be obtained by both killing enemies and through specific abilities. It’s very good for survivability and utility, but as a condition necromancer, it’s not a good idea to stay in it for long. Still, it’s worth emphasizing that it’s one of the best survivability cooldowns in the game because life force essentially acts as a second health bar.
However, all of that does come with one major downside: a lack of burst. Necromancers, as ArenaNet has explained, are masters of attrition. Their access to AOE damage, condition damage, solid utility, and deadly debuffs is balanced out by a total inability to spike down a target’s health. This can hurt in some PvE fights and encounters that demand quick kills (for example, Giganticus Lupicus’ grubs are harder to solo for a necromancer), but it’s easily made up by a proper team composition.
The bleed cap is also a potential downside to condition necromancers. The cap of 25 bleeds forces a good group to not get more than one condition-built member. This also makes some traits and stats, particularly those focused on bleed and condition duration, a little worse, but more on that later.
II. Weapon and Death Shroud Abilities
There’s really not much diversity here. Scepter and dagger are the bread-and-butter of the build, with staff acting as a proper secondary weapon for utility and AOE damage. In underwater situations, trident is almost always the best option due to its auto-attack.
Scepter and Dagger:
1. Blood Curse / Rending Curse / Putrid Curse: The first two attacks apply a bleed for 5 seconds default, and the third attack applies poison for 2 seconds default. Get ready to spam this a lot! When every other attack on scepter and dagger is on cooldown, this is the best damage option.
2. Grasping Dead: An AOE that applies cripple and three stacks of bleed for 7 seconds default. It also applies cripple, which is very useful on trash and some bosses that need to be kited. It’s probably the best damage cooldown while using scepter and dagger.
3. Feast of Corruption: Decent direct damage, and scepter’s main source for life force, which is used for Death Shroud.
4. Deathly Swarm: Blinds and transfers one condition from the necromancer to its target, with the potential to bounce to up to three targets. This ability is incredible. It can be coupled with corruption skills to apply self-afflicted conditions on enemy targets. For example, using Blood is Power before Deathly Swarm hits a target will transfer the self-applied bleed to a target, resulting in two extra bleed stacks for 10 seconds default.
5. Enfeebling Blood: An AOE that applies weakness and two stacks of bleed for 10 seconds default. Pretty standard. It’s probably the second best damage cooldown while using scepter and dagger, and weakness is great, as explained in IX. Tips.
Staff:
1. Necrotic Grasp: Does direct damage through a piercing, slightly homing projectile. It’s a pretty terrible auto-attack. Spam it during downtime on cooldowns, but the terribleness of this attack is the main reason it’s important to switch out from staff to scepter and dagger as soon as possible and why it’s better to never change to staff in single-target situations. The only advantage is it pierces, so it can AOE bunched-up mobs or mobs in a line.
2. Mark of Blood: Ground-targeted AOE that applies three stacks of bleed for 8 seconds default in an AOE. It also applies a regen to anyone who’s close to the mark when it’s triggered, healing anyone in a target’s melee range. Great AOE and bleed application.
3. Chillblains: Ground-targeted AOE that applies chill for 4 seconds default and poison for 6 seconds default, and it’s AOE. Use this on mobs that heal and/or need to be kited. It also applies a poison combo field, which can be chained with Putrid Mark to apply weakness.
4. Putrid Mark: Ground-targeted AOE that counts as a blast combo finisher and does decent damage, transfers all conditions from the necromancer to a target, and transfers one condition from each ally close to the triggered mark to a target. Probably the most overlooked staff attack. In a coordinated group, this can essentially act as a party-wide single-condition cleanse. The blast combo finisher can be used with Chillblains to apply weakness.
5. Reaper’s Mark: Ground-targeted AOE that fears for 1 second default. Probably the best interrupt in the game. Very useful for pushing back and controlling AOE packs. It used to always work on bosses, but it’s now limited by defiant, a buff typically on champion and boss mobs that needs to be worn down by crowd-control abilities before the mob is vulnerable to crowd control.
Trident:
1. Crimson Tide: Applies one stack of bleed for 5 seconds default and does moderate direct damage in an AOE around the target. It is what a condition necromancer uses underwater 90 percent of the time. Spam, spam, spam.
2. Feast: Applies weakness and does decent direct damage in an AOE around the necromancer, and gives life force if it hits an enemy. Okay for the weakness and life force if enemies are already around. Since underwater Death Shroud isn’t very good as a condition necromancer, it’s not that important to keep life force up underwater except for survivability purposes, so only use this ability when it’s convenient.
3. Foul Current: Shoots the necromancer at a target and leaves a trail that applies poison for 4 seconds default. It’s mostly useless. Its best use is closing distance on an enemy that’s far away. It got slightly buffed by being turned into a poison combo field, but it’s not really worth much.
4. Sinking Tomb: Sinks a target for 2 seconds, and it ignores Defiant. Use on cooldown, assuming it won’t put a mob in a bad position.
5. Frozen Abyss: Does good direct damage, applies about 4 seconds default of chill while charging up, and applies seven stacks of vulnerability for 7 seconds default, but it has a long cast and requires melee range. It got slightly buffed recently by being turned into a blast combo finisher, but it’s still only for building distance on enemies.
Death Shroud (Land):
1. Life Blast: Does decent direct damage. Mostly useless as a condition necromancer. I only use this when I need to stay in Death Shroud to survive.
2. Dark Path: Applies chill and three stacks of bleed for 5 seconds default, but it puts the necromancer in melee range. I will always use it when I switch to necromancer as long as getting into melee doesn’t put me in a bad spot. (Tip: It’s possible to cast this then jump out of Death Shroud immediately after, which usually allows the necromancer to get one other attack in before the projectile lands. It’s also possible to mitigate the forced melee range with Doom and Deathly Swarm.)
3. Doom: Standard single-target fear for 1 second default. Amazing interrupt with a relatively short 20-second cooldown. On bosses that don’t need to be interrupted, I use this on cooldown to wear down Defiant.
4. Life Transfer: Does AOE damage around the necromancer and builds up life force for every target it hits. Great survivability tool and AOE damage, but it’s not worth using for damage in single-target situations. Keep in mind the damage shown on the screen is cumulative for the entire channel, not representative of each tick.
Death Shroud (Underwater):
1. Life Blast: Does moderate damage and transfers one condition. Like its land-based alternative, I only use this when I need to stay in Death Shroud for survivability, even though the condition transfer can be nice, especially after Gathering Plague (No. 4).
2. Dark Water: Applies blind for 3 seconds default and poison for 7 seconds default. Worth using with every switch to Death Shroud.
3. Wave of Fear: Applies fear in an AOE cone in front of the necromancer for 2 seconds default. Requires small-to-medium range and facing the target. A downgrade from its land-based alternative, but still useful.
4. Gathering Plague: Transfers all conditions from party members to the necromancer. Very useful when multiple party members are struck with conditions, especially if it’s paired up with Consume Conditions or Plague Signet to immediately remove the absorbed conditions.
III. Traits
For condition necromancers, picking traits is about maximizing damage while also picking up some utility to be useful to the group. Here is my base build with the heal, utility skills, and elite skill I use a plurality of the time. The equipped skills are meant to act as a base, not a definitive set. Please look at IV. Heals, Utility Skills, and Elite Skills for a much deeper explanation of the heals, utility skills, and elite skills. Skills are very fluid and always changing depending on the encounter. Here is my guide for Fractals of the Mists, which shows how my abilities change from encounter to encounter in Fractals of the Mists.
One advantage to this build is changing over to world vs. world only requires a few major trait and utility skill changes. For more information on my world vs. world build, click here.
Curses:
The standard tree for bleeds and conditions. It gives condition damage and precision, the two best damage stats for condition necromancer.
Minor traits:
Barbed Precision: Gives critical hits a 66 percent chance to apply one bleed for 1 second default. Decent damage, but it’s slightly held down by the bleed cap since the bleed last for so little time.
Furious Demise: Gain Fury for 5 seconds default when entering Death Shroud. This is pretty amazing, especially when paired up with Barbed Precision and Superior Sigil of Earth. One way good and great condition necromancers are set apart is by maximizing fury through Death Shroud.
Target the Weak: For each condition on a target, boosts direct damage by 2 percent. It’s not amazing since it only works on direct damage, not bleeds and poison. But it is an okay damage boost since all attacks have direct-damage components to them.
Major Traits:
II. Hemophilia: Increases bleed duration by 20 percent. Pretty standard. It is bogged down by bleed cap, as all condition duration is, but it’s still a hefty damage boost.
VII. Master of Corruption: Reduces the cooldown on corruption skills by 20 percent. Essential for Blood is Power and Epidemic. For more information on corruption skills, check out IV. Heals, Utility Skills, and Elite Skills.
XI. Lingering Curse: Increases the duration of all conditions applied by scepter by 33 percent. Unlike all other condition duration increases, this effect is multiplicative, not additive, so it’s actually much stronger than the typical condition duration increase. Its awesomeness is brought down by bleed cap, but it’s still a huge damage boost, and it also increases the duration of cripple on scepter’s No. 2 ability.
Death Magic:
Standard survivability tree. I consider it the second best tree since it provides much-needed survivability, some increases to boon duration, and greatly improves the staff.
Minor Traits:
Reanimator: Summons a jagged horror whenever the necromancer kills an enemy. More than one can be out at a time as of a recent patch. Honestly, I wish it was possible to disable this trait. The jagged horror can actually hurt on fights like Giganticus Lupicus, and it doesn’t do much of anything.
Protection of the Horde: Grants 20 extra toughness for each minion the necromancer has summoned. Okay trait, considering a necromancer will typically have a flesh golem and jagged horror out in PvE.
Major Traits:
II. Greater Marks: Increases the radius of marks and makes them unblockable. Really great trait. It makes marks easier to aim, makes marks more effective at AOE, and allows the necromancer to do damage through block.
IV. Ritual of Protection: Causes wells to apply 3.6 seconds of protection, which lowers direct damage by 33 percent, to anyone on them when they’re cast. Really amazing utility skill, and I consider it a necessity for Well of Blood.
Blood Magic:
Standard healing and dagger tree. I go into this for the slight survivability and cooldown reduction for wells and dagger skills.
Minor Traits:
Full of Life: Applies regen for 5 seconds default to the necromancer whenever s/he’s hit and below 90 percent health, but it has a 30-second cooldown. Decent survivability passive.
Vampiric: Siphons health on attacks. Decent self-heal.
Major Traits:
I. Dagger Mastery: Lowers cooldown on dagger abilities by 15 percent. Very good for Enfeebling Blood, the second best bleed application while using dagger and scepter, and Deathly Swarm, which is great for transferring conditions.
VIII. Ritual Mastery: Lowers the cooldown on wells by 20 percent. It’s necessary for builds that use Well of Blood since the default cooldown is way too long.
Options and Alternatives:
Although a majority of fights require my base set-up, there are some situations in which I switch out major traits. This can be easily done out of combat, and it’s always advisable in prolonged underwater encounters, where it’s not possible to use wells.
Curses:
IX. Focused Rituals: Allows wells to be ground targeted. In some fights, corruption skills are switched out in favor of well skills, so it’s a good idea to replace Master of Corruption with this.
XII. Withering Precision: Gives critical hits a 25-percent chance to apply weakness for 3 seconds default. Trading Lingering Curse for this is a big DPS loss, but it essentially makes weakness a passive condition on mobs. (For more information on why weakness is awesome, check out IX. Tips.)
Death Magic:
V. Staff Mastery: Staff skills recharge 20 percent faster. Pretty standard cooldown reduction. Amazing for maximizing staff’s AOE and utility. It also makes switching into staff for utility less painful damage-wise by allowing more Mark of Blood spam. It’s a suitable replacement for Greater Marks, particularly in some single-target situations.
VIII. Reaper’s Protection: Makes the necromancer AOE fear whenever s/he is hit with hard crowd control (stun, daze, knockback, knockdown, sink, float, fear, or launch), with a 90-second cooldown. I like this ability in theory, but the cooldown is way too long. Still worth considering against mobs that heavily use crowd control abilities.
X. Flesh of the Master: Gives minions 50 percent more health. It’s an okay replacement for Greater Marks in single-target encounters that don’t require swapping to staff.
Blood Magic:
III. Mark of Evasion: Drops a weaker version of Mark of Blood at the end of a roll, with a 10-second cooldown. It’s good for stacking two extra bleeds for 8 seconds default, but it can encourage some bad rolls and requires melee range.
IV. Heals, Utility Skills, and Elite Skills
Although the build I linked earlier has a base of skills that I stick to in the average fight, it’s important to note that heals, utility skills, and elite skills can change depending on the situation. There is no reason to use Epidemic on a purely single-target encounter, as good as it is. There are some encounters that demand more group utility and survivability through wells. Minions are completely worthless and flat-out detrimental in some fights. Knowing all the utility skills available to me lets me adjust my build to match different situations.
Here is my guide for Fractals of the Mists. It shows how my abilities change from encounter to encounter in Fractals of the Mists.
Heals:
Well of Blood: Applies an instant heal to the necromancer and then acts as a ground-based heal-over-time spell that any ally can use. It also drops a light combo field, which gives retaliation on blast finishers (Putrid Mark) and condition removal on projectiles (Necrotic Grasp). This is the standard heal for my build because it makes use of traits to give protection and have a lower cooldown.
Consume Conditions: Absorbs all conditions and heals, with each absorbed condition boosting the heal. The cookie-cutter heal for necromancers without well traits, particularly Ritual Mastery (Well of Blood’s cooldown is too long without it). The best part is this heal essentially ignores poison’s healing debuff and, in fact, gets stronger from absorbing poison. It can also be chained with corruption skills to boost the heal. In PvE, I mostly use this underwater, but it can be okay in some condition-heavy encounters.
Utility Skills:
Corruption Skills: Corruption abilities provide utility on top of the occasional damage. The downside to them is they each apply a condition on the necromancer, but this self-applied condition can be transferred to mobs with Deathly Swarm and Putrid Mark.
Blood is Power: Applies two stacks of bleeds for 30 seconds default on the target, grants 10 stacks of might to the necromancer, and applies two stacks of bleeds for 10 seconds default on the necromancer, all with a 24-second cooldown if traited for corruption skills. This ability is a huge damage boost. The bleeds are nice by themselves, especially when the self-applied bleeds are transferred to an enemy target. But the best part is the might, which grants 350 condition damage for 14.4 seconds. The might is retroactive, so it affects all bleeds already on a target. At lv. 80, this translates to 17.5 more damage per bleed tick for about two-thirds of the time as long as Blood is Power is used on cooldown. (Some people claim this ability sometimes does not work, but, in my experience, that’s not true. It has never failed me as long as I’m facing my target and within range.)
Corrupt Boon: Dispels all boons on a target and turns them into conditions. For information on what the boons are converted into, click here. Decent for mobs that stack boons, particularly for mobs that stack stability because stability can be corrupted into fear. (Some people claim this ability sometimes does not work, but, in my experience, that’s not true. It has never failed me as long as I’m facing my target and within range.)
Epidemic: Spreads all conditions on a target to up to five extra targets, with only a 12-second cooldown when traited. Epidemic is the staple of the condition necromancer. It is the best AOE in the game, allowing the spread of 25 stacks of bleeds, other damaging conditions, and any utility-based condition. However, it’s not very good on boss fights that are focused on single-target damage.
Corrosive Poison Cloud: Ground-targeted AOE that applies weakness and poison on a target for 3 seconds default instantly and then every 3 seconds for 12 seconds, but it applies weakness to the necromancer for 6 seconds default. It also acts as a poison combo field, which can be used for more weakness through a blast combo finisher (staff No. 4) and for poison through a projectile (staff No. 1). This is an overlooked ability, mostly because a lot of players underestimate weakness. For more information on how awesome weakness is, go toIX. Tips. I usually replace Epidemic with Corrosive Poison Cloud for single-target situations.
Signets: Useful for a variety of utility. I usually use one signet in my typical load-out.
Signet of Undeath: Ranged, small-radius AOE revive that can be used in-combat and affects up to three downed players, with a 180-second cooldown. It also generates 1 percent of life force every 3 seconds. By far the most useful signet in group situations. No matter how good a group is, someone is bound to be downed at some point. This can make the process of reviving a player that much easier. One encounter in which this signet particularly shines is Giganticus Lupicus in Arah. Since avoiding melee range is generally advisable on that boss, having a ranged revive can be a lifesaver, literally. Honestly, unless I’m underwater, this signet is always equipped, and it’s only unequipped underwater due to the finicky targeting. (Note: The revive only works on downed players, not fully dead.)
Plague Signet: Makes the necromancer absorb one condition from each group member every 10 seconds, and it can be used to transfer all conditions on the necromancer to a target. It sounds better in theory than it works in practice, mostly because the 10-second pulse timer is too long. I generally recommend Well of Power over this for condition removal.
Signet of the Locust: Grants 25-percent move speed, and it heals the necromancer and damages a target when activated. Never use the active ability for this, and only use it for the move speed. It’s a huge speed boost, so use it on fights that require heavy kiting or to move around between pulls or while avoiding mobs.
Spectral Skills: These abilities are too selfish, and their cooldowns are usually too long to be effective. Spectral Walk used to be decent for kiting, but there’s really no reason to use it over Signet of Locust in PvE. (In PvP, Spectral Walk is sometimes good for the stun break and teleport.)
Minions: For the most part, minions are more trouble than they’re worth. Their AI is unreliable — it sometimes doesn’t attack at all — and they tend to die too easily. They also do very little except provide extra damage, so they are generally a huge sacrifice in terms of utility. Still, one minion in particular is sometimes useful in single-target situations.
Summon Flesh Wurm: Summons an immobile wurm that does damage. The wurm can also be sacrificed to teleport to it and poison foes surrounding it. It’s a decent damage option for single-target situations, but I usually prefer Corrosive Poison Cloud for the poison and weakness.
Wells: Wells are amazing utility. When traited for them, they are probably the best support a Necromancer can bring. They also drop dark combo fields, which gives blind on blast finishers (Putrid Mark) and life steal on projectiles (Necrotic Grasp). However, using them comes at the cost of damage since they typically replace Blood is Power and Epidemic over Signet of Undeath since a revive is always useful and great utility.
Well of Darkness: Player-based AOE that blinds every second for 5 seconds with a 1-minute default cooldown. Amazing for packs of mobs, particularly in the Cliffside fractal. When properly traited, it also applies protection for ranged mobs if dropped on party members.
Well of Power: Player-based AOE that removes one condition on allies and the necromancer every second for 5 seconds, and each condition removed turns into a boon, with a 1-minute default cooldown. For a full list of how the conditions are converted, click here. This is probably the best option for a necromancer looking for party-wide condition removal. It is particularly useful on the Legendary Imbued Shaman in the grawl fractal because it turns its nearly constant burn into aegis, giving more survivability for a fight that desperately requires it.
Well of Corruption: Player-based AOE that removes one boon on enemies every second for 5 seconds, and each boon removed turns into a condition, with a 45-second default cooldown. For a full list of how the boons are converted, click here. Corrupt Boon is preferable unless the necromancer is traited for wells, and, even then, the fact Corrupt Boon dispels all boons at once typically puts it over the edge.
Well of Suffering: Player-based AOE that applies two stacks of vulnerability for 5 seconds default every second, lasting for 5 seconds total, with a 45-second default cooldown. The vulnerability can be helpful for party members, but I feel it lasts for too little time to be effective. Still, it can be useful on fights in which conditions are marginalized, like the last two bosses of the dredge fractal.
Elite Skills:
Lich Form: Turns the necromancer into a super-powered lich with lots of direct damage and minions. This is only useful in the last two bosses of the dredge fractal. Otherwise, keeping bleeds up with flesh golem is preferable for damage.
Summon Flesh Golem: Summons a pet that does decent damage. The AI for the pet can be really stupid, and the pet dies a lot more than I would like. But it generally attacks whatever the necromancer is attacking and does decent damage, effectively acting as a big damage-over-time skill. It also has a useful knockdown. This is my typical elite skill.
Plague: Turns the necromancer into a virulent cloud that can apply conditions. This is really only useful for the AOE blind and massive boost in toughness because it doesn’t enough bleeds to make up for the loss of AOE bleed application from scepter and dagger or staff. The AOE blind is amazing, however, on packs of mobs, particularly on trash in the Cliffside and Ascalonian fractals.
V. Gear
Armor, Weapons, and Trinkets:
I stick with rabid stat combination, or condition damage, precision, and toughness. The precision is good because it turns the Barbed Precision trait and Superior Sigil of Earth into huge damage boosts. The toughness is good for two reasons: First, it’s a great boost to survivability, which is vastly underrated in dungeons where some damage is too difficult or downright impossible to avoid. Second, the toughness interacts with consumables and the full set of Superior Rune of the Undead to provide a decent boost to condition damage.
However, there could be a case for power, condition damage, and precision if survivability isn’t an issue for whatever reason. Power does not benefit conditions, but necromancers have enough direct damage for it to be a decent direct-damage boost. Still, even without a full set of Rune of the Undead, this stat combination has less overall condition damage than the rabid stat combination because it prioritizes power over condition damage and precision.
Tips for Gearing Up:
Getting a set with rabid stats — condition damage, precision, and toughness — can be a pain, but it’s possible with time and patience.
On the trading post, look up the Khilbron’s set for armor. For weapons, look up a Mystic Wand (scepter), Malefacterym (dagger), Bramblethorne (staff), and Limitless Furnace (trident).
Trinkets and backpacks are only available on the trading post. For trinkets, get two Tortured Root accessories, one Colossus Fang amulet, and two Plague rings. For a backpack, look up a rare-quality rabid backpack. Rare-quality rabid trinkets are also an option if exotic gear is too expensive.
Some of the armor is also accessible through karma. The head, shoulder, hand, and leg pieces from karma vendors. Click here for the full list and locations of the vendors on Dulfy‘s amazing website.
For an underwater breather, karma gear is the best option. Buy the Gavbeorn Breather of the Afflicted at Gavbeorn’s Waypoint after the Temple of Melandru event. (Also, underwater breathers replace helmets underwater, so remember to slot it with a rune.)
It’s also possible to get rabid weapons and armor from dungeon explorable modes. Caudecus’s Manor, Twilight Arbor, Honor of the Waves, and Arah provide the full sets.
After all that’s set up, it’s time for ascended gear. The rabid ascended rings are Khilbron’s Phylactery and Ouroboros Loop, which are obtained in the Fractals of the Mists. The rabid ascended backpack is Endless Quiver, which is made at the Mystic Forge.
Runes:
The full set of Rune of the Undead is one option. It provides decent survivability and turns some toughness into condition damage. In straight math terms, it’s the best possibility for maxing out bleed ticks. With my gear, which caps toughness at 1,875, it’s 93.75 condition damage. That is nearly the same amount of condition damage on a chest piece. In total, it adds about 5 damage per bleed tick, or about 3.9 percent more bleed damage with no might.
One alternative is three Runes of the Krait and three Runes of the Afflicted for some decent condition damage and condition duration. This set has potential, but I feel it’s bogged down by the bleed cap. The cap ruins condition duration as a stat if there is more than one condition-built member in a group. If a target is consistently capped at 25 bleeds, it’s better to make those bleeds tick for more damage than it is to be capable of stacking more. But if there aren’t any other bleeders in the group, the condition duration set is more DPS.
Jewels:
Unfortunately, my build is stuck with the rare-quality Crest of the Rabid to maximize condition damage through condition damage, precision, and toughness. Like stated earlier, Exquisite Coral Jewels are also viable for condition damage, power, and precision, but it does give less condition damage overall.
Sigils:
For the scepter and staff, Superior Sigil of Earth is standard. It gives critical hits a 60 percent chance to apply a stack of bleed for 5 seconds default. This is a huge part of the build, and it’s why condition necromancers want precision.
For the dagger, it’s more about personal preference. I prefer Superior Sigil of Accuracy for 5-percent critical hit chance, but Superior Sigil of Agony is also viable for longer-lasting bleeds and Superior Sigil of Corruption is good if it’s possible to keep 10 to 25 stacks. I tend to avoid other proc-based sigils because they share an inner cooldown with Superior Sigil of Earth, so it’s better to grab a sigil with a passive boost.
VI. Consumables
Unfortunately, consumables are often overlooked. This is a shame because even the affordable options add 189 condition damage and 36 percent condition duration. That’s a massive damage increase! Since I realize consumables can be too expensive for some, I’ll list what I consider the affordable options and the best options.
Affordable Options:
Super Veggie Pizza: Food buff. This gives 60 condition damage and 36 percent condition duration. It’s the affordable, nearly max DPS food for condition necromancers. It typically sells for about 1 silver on the trading post.
Eggplant Fritter: Food buff. This gives 60 condition damage and 26 percent magic find. It’s the affordable, nearly max DPS food with magic find for condition necromancers. It typically sells for about 45 copper on the trading post.
Quality Tuning Crystal: Miscellaneous buff. This converts 5 percent of toughness and 3 percent of vitality into condition damage. It’s a massive damage gain, especially when paired with condition damage, precision, and toughness gear. It typically sells for about 30 copper on the trading post.
Best Options:
Rare Veggie Pizza: Food buff. This gives 70 condition damage and 40 percent condition duration. It’s the best DPS food for condition necromancers. It typically sells for about 4 silver on the trading post.
Spicy Pumpkin Cookie: Food buff. This gives 70 condition damage and 30 percent magic find. It’s the best DPS food with magic find for condition necromancers. It typically sells for about 88 copper on the trading post.
Master Tuning Crystal: Miscellaneous buff. This converts 6 percent of toughness and 4 percent of vitality into condition damage. It’s the best damage gain, especially when paired with condition damage, precision, and toughness gear. It typically sells for about 3 silver on the trading post.
VII. Skill Priority
For the most part, this will cover weapon rotations. Utility skills are highly situational, with Blood is Power and Epidemic acting as exceptions due to their damage-based nature. Those utility skills should be top priority — assuming other bleeds are up in the case of Epidemic — over all weapon skills. Also, read VIII. Use of Death Shroud for how to maximize Death Shroud in rotations for DPS.
Scepter and Dagger vs. Staff:
The most important thing to know about the two weapon sets for condition necromancer is staff is only there for AOE and utility, while the scepter-and-dagger set is much better for damage. The scepter-and-dagger set is capable of stacking twice as many bleeds, which is obviously ideal for maximizing condition damage. The poison, chill, condition removal, and fear from staff are still great for dealing with large packs of mobs, but they’re simply not as good as the scepter-and-dagger set is for damage.
What this means is staying in staff for too long leads to a big drop in damage done. In the ideal situation, a condition necromancer should be using the scepter-and-dagger set as much as possible, and staff should only be changed to for 10 seconds (weapon swap cooldown) when it’s needed to AOE mobs or fear.
Single-Target Situations on Land:
Stick to scepter and dagger. The ideal priority is Grasping Dead (No. 2) over Enfeebling Blood (No. 5) over Feast of Corruption (No. 3) over Blood Curse / Rending Curse / Putrid Curse (No. 1). Deathly Swarm (No. 4) is good when afflicted with conditions, particularly after Blood is Power is used.
In some situations, it is worth changing to staff for the chill, poison, condition removal and fear. When to swap is entirely situational. Just keep in mind changing to staff is a large DPS loss in single-target encounters due to the very weak Necrotic Grasp (staff No. 1), and tread carefully.
AOE Situations on Land:
Cooldown spam! Start with staff, use all the marks, even Reaper’s Mark (No. 5) for the fear. Try to use Chillblains (No. 3) before Putrid Mark (No. 4) for the weakness-applying combo. After marks are used, switch to scepter and dagger, use Grasping Dead (No. 2) and Enfeebling Blood (No. 5), then use Epidemic (utility skill). Change weapons as much as possible after that, and use Epidemic on cooldown.
Underwater:
For the most part, stick to Crimson Tide (No. 1) spam. It’s the highest DPS possible underwater. Also make sure to use Sinking Tomb on cooldown for the crowd control.
VIII. Use of Death Shroud
Death Shroud is one of the best tools necromancers have. It is a massive survivability cooldown and, with traits, it can be used effectively for condition damage. Unfortunately, it’s one ability that is woefully misunderstood, so it deserves its own special section!
Gaining Life Force:
For the most part, condition necromancers should be gaining life force naturally through Feast of Corruption and killing mobs. It’s not something anyone should think about too much. However, it’s important to keep in mind that killing mobs is a huge boost of life force, so if a mob is low and the necromancer isn’t capped on life force, it should be prioritized quickly for life force gain.
Survivability:
This should be what most life force goes into. As a condition necromancer, it’s not a good idea to stick around in Death Shroud because it means bleeds fall off, and bleeds are the main source of damage. So save up that life force for survivability! There are a few good moments to utilize the survivability, particularly when a heal is down or when it’s necessary to soak up conditions and other damage-over-time effects (Agony in fractals!) or any big hits from bosses. I use this a lot to soak up AOE attacks (pesky red circles) when I can’t or don’t want to use a roll.
Damage:
As a condition necromancer, Death Shroud is used mostly for fury in combination with the Furious Demise trait. Fury, which gives a 20 percent chance to crit, nearly guarantees critical hits when a condition necromancer is built for precision. To do this, simply tap the Death Shroud button (F1 default) twice to dip in and out of Death Shroud and obtain fury.
In most fights, I use Death Shroud on cooldown to keep fury up as much as possible. I only save it on certain fights in which I know I’ll need Death Shroud for survivability (examples: Giganticus Lupicus in Arah and the Legendary Imbued Shaman in the grawl fractal).
Constant use of Death Shroud essentially means two or three extra stacks of bleeds, a substantial damage increase.
To further maximize the Fury, I usually try to use it when I’m only going to spam scepter No. 1. This can stack more bleeds due to scepter No. 1′s fast cast time.
No. 2:
In both land and water, Dark Path and Dark Water (No. 2 abilities) are the only really useful damaging abilities for a condition necromancer. On land, No. 2 applies bleed and chill, but at the cost of forcing melee range. On water, it applies poison and blind, which are decent damage and utility. Except for special situations noted inII. Weapon and Death Shroud Abilities, avoid other abilities.
IX. Tips
Epidemic for Single-Target Damage:
Most bosses have adds, and most necromancer abilities are AOE. This opens up a huge window for essentially doubling the amount of bleeds on a target. The process is simple: Stack bleeds on the focus target and an extra mob with AOEs, target the extra mob, and Epidemic. Voila, conditions on the focus target are now doubled. If used effectively, this can let a single condition necromancer push the bleed cap in fights that consistently involve extra mobs.
Maximizing Weakness:
This is the most under-appreciated condition in the game. In simple terms, it makes 50 percent of non-critical hits do half the damage. This can be a huge damage decrease depending on a mob’s critical hit chance. Even if a mob has 50-percent critical hit chance, this is still a 12.5-percent reduction in damage overall. That can seriously save lives and heals!
Wear Down Defiant:
As explained earlier, Defiant is a buff typically seen on champion and boss mobs that makes them immune to crowd-control abilities. It is explained in full detail here. It’s important to wear down Defiant to maximize the amount of crowd control that is available on a boss, so it’s a good idea to use Reaper’s Mark while in staff*, Doom while in Death Shroud, and Charge (flesh golem ability) as much as possible. There are some situations where it’s a good idea to save the crowd control (interrupting a heal or big attack, for example), but wearing down Defiant is a big help in most fights.
*As good as wearing down Defiant is, never switch to staff just for the Reaper’s Mark. Since staff’s No. 1 skill is such awful damage for a condition necromancer, it’s typically not worth the damage loss.
X. Frequently Asked Questions
When should condition necromancers swap to staff in single-target situations?
It’s very situational. When I really need to slow down damage and build distance on an enemy, I’ll change to staff to chill (No. 3) and fear (No. 5). When I really need to get some conditions off myself or some teammates, I’ll change to staff to use Putrid Mark (No. 4). Otherwise, I stick to scepter and dagger for the damage.
Why not 10 points into Spite for Reaper’s Might?
As good as the might is, I don’t think it’s worth it. There are two problems with this:
First, the slight DPS gain from might is not worth letting bleeds drop. Here is my math comparing both scenarios, assuming that the necromancer stays in Death Shroud for five Life Blasts, and excluding any bleeds from crits for the sake of simplicity:
Life Blast spam for Reaper’s Might: 4,575 damage total = (8.75 extra bleed damage from might * 15 seconds of might * 12 bleeds on average) + 3,000 direct damage
Scepter No. 1 spam: 8,685 damage total = (132 bleed tick without might * 8-second duration * 6 stacks) + (243 poison tick without might * 3 stacks) + 1,620 direct damage
Second, fury from Death Shroud benefits scepter’s No. 1 attack more because it has half the cast time as Life Blast. That means more crits, which means more chances at stacking an extra bleed. That means the full math would favor scepter No. 1 even more.
Why not Sigil of Battle?
First, you really shouldn’t be swapping that much in single-target situations, which actually makes Sigil of Battle nearly worthless on a lot of bosses. Second, it shares an inner cooldown with Superior Sigil of Earth, so a swap can potentially delay extra bleed stacks.
Why not might duration runes (two Runes of the Fire, two Runes of Hoelbrak, two Runes of Strength)?
For this, it’s best to do a straight-up mathematical comparison. The math above for Reaper’s Might shows might duration would have to be about tripled for it to be on-par with scepter No. 1 spam, which is impossible even with might duration runes. So it’s best to just look at Blood is Power, the only other source for might available to necromancers.
Here is the mathematical head-to-head comparing bleed damage gained from a full set of Rune of the Undead and the might duration rune set:
Full set of Rune of the Undead: 14.075 total bleed damage per tick = (28 condition damage from first rune + 55 condition damage from third rune + 100 condition damage from fifth rune + 98.5 condition damage from sixth rune) * 0.05 bleed coefficient for condition damage
Might duration rune set: 5.25 total bleed damage per tick = ((12 seconds of might duration from Blood is Power * 0.6 increased might duration) / 24-second cooldown on Blood is Power) * (350 condition damage from Blood is Power * 0.05 bleed coefficient for condition damage)
It’s a lot of complicated math, but it shows the extra uptime on Blood is Power’s might gives about 37.3 percent of the bleeding damage in the long term in comparison to a full set of Rune of the Undead. Even worse, that’s assuming that Blood is Power is always being used on cooldown, which is unrealistic.
Plus, since Blood is Power is the only major source of might necromancers have, it would be required in every encounter to maximize the might duration rune set. That’s fairly limiting. There are a few boss fights where I don’t run with Blood is Power at all, particularly the Legendary Imbued Shaman encounter in the grawl fractal.
The might duration rune set does come with the upside of also increasing direct damage, but the build this guide is for is foremost a condition build. Scepter and off-hand dagger also have pretty terrible coefficients when it comes to power, so any power gain is really low on the priority list for a build that mostly relies on scepter and dagger.
Why not a hybrid gear set-up?
The main reason hybrid builds, meaning builds that combine power and condition damage, are mediocre inGuild Wars 2 is because the stats from the main DPS archetypes — condition damage, precision, and toughness in rabid and power, precision, and critical damage in berserker — scale better when taken together.
For example, with berserker gear, precision is geared toward making critical strikes more frequent, but in the same set-up, critical strikes actually get stronger. So every percent of critical strike chance (21 precision at level 80) actually becomes better as the critical strikes triggered become stronger through power and critical damage. The math behind this is simple: With no extra critical damage, 1 percent chance to crit, or 21 precision, only adds about 0.5 percent DPS. With 50 percent extra critical damage, that 21 precision suddenly adds about 1 percent DPS because the critical strikes triggered are now doing double the damage.
It’s the same concept with condition damage, toughness, and bleeds in the rabid set-up. With rabid gear, precision triggers more bleeds, while condition damage and, to a much lesser degree, toughness all add to bleed damage. So each point of precision becomes stronger with each point of condition damage and toughness because the more frequent bleeds also tick harder.
In other words, it’s better to focus on two or three main stats, especially as each individual stat gets higher, because of how the stats synergize with each other. If a hybrid approach is taken to gearing, the lack of focus actually makes a build do exponentially less damage in the long term.
XI. Revisions and Additions
Jan. 3, 2012: Added a clarification about the scepter-and-dagger set vs. staff in VII. Skill Priority. Added an explanation about the advantage of range in I. Why Condition Necromancer?
Dec. 28, 2012: Adjusted wording and a typo and removed a question and answer from X. Frequently Asked Questions since it was a bit misleading, all with the help of Ancallan on the official forums.
Dec. 26, 2012: Clarified that the trait build linked in III. Traits is meant to act as a base, not a definitive set.
Dec. 25, 2012: Added a question and answer about hybrid gearing to X. Frequently Asked Questions. Added information for underwater equipment in V. Gear.
Dec. 23, 2012: Added and updated images. Added a question and answer to X. Frequently Asked Questionsabout using staff in single-target situations.
Dec. 22, 2012: After making it through the apocalypse, I decided to edit III. Traits to better encourage the use of Well of Blood.
Dec. 21, 2012: Added Summon Flesh Wurm to the minion section in IV. Heals, Utility Skills, and Elite Skills. Corrected wording for some skill descriptions.
Dec. 20, 2012: Added a question and answer to X. Frequently Asked Questions about might duration runes. Added dungeon gear with rabid stats to gearing tips in V. Gear. Adjusted wording on some ability descriptions.
Dec. 19, 2012: Added questions and answers to X. Frequently Asked Questions. Added VI. Consumables, largely with the help of notpowercat on Reddit. Added more information, partly with the help of bigballer_status on Reddit. Ran some corrections, largely with the help of lettucemode and Drarnor Kunoram on the official forums and froghorn on Reddit. Fixed some typos.
A Condition Necromancer’s Guide to PvE
Hello, my name is Lopez. I’m an avid Guild Wars 2 fan. Before Guild Wars 2, I played almost every other major MMORPG release, from World of Warcraft to Star Wars: The Old Republic to The Secret World. When I focused on World of Warcraft, I achieved gladiator on my death knight for seasons 8, 9, and 10 of arenas.
In Guild Wars 2, I decided to focus on both PvE and PvP content on my condition necromancer. I used this build to get to lv. 30 fractals within a week of their release. At this point, I feel like I’ve built up enough experience to write a guide, so here it is! This guide will mostly focus on dungeons, fractals, and small-scale event farming, mostly because all the other PvE content is relatively simple enough to not require a guide.
If you have any questions, feel free to send me a message on Twitter (@LopezIRL), in-game (Lopez), or email me ([email protected]).
Table of Contents
I. Why Condition Necromancer?
II. Weapon and Death Shroud Abilities
III. Traits
IV. Heals, Utility Skills, and Elite Skills
V. Gear
VI. Consumables
VII. Skill Priority
VIII. Use of Death Shroud
IX. Tips
X. Frequently Asked Questions
XI. Revisions and Additions
I. Why Condition Necromancer?
In one word, Epidemic.
Condition necromancer has the best area-of-effect (AOE) potential in the game. With Epidemic, it can spread all the conditions on a target to up to five other targets. Not only can this be used for massive AOE damage if it spreads 25 stacks of bleeds, some stacks of confusion, burning, and poison, but it also has the benefit of spreading debuffs like blind, chilled, cripple, fear, immobilize, vulnerability, and weakness.
To top it off, condition necromancers can do solid single-target damage. With might from Blood is Power, each of my bleeds do about 149 damage every second. Since I can typically stack 10 to 16 bleeds, that’s 1490 to 2384 damage a second. That’s not even counting my direct damage from attacks and my other condition damage from poison.
That single-target damage also comes with the added benefit of being executed from range. While direct-damage builds tend to sacrifice damage at range, condition builds keep the same DPS and sacrifice burst instead. Being able to keep maximum range is a massive boost to survivability and damage potential. It lets a condition necromancer overcome many boss mechanics while doing maximum DPS.
By itself, necromancer also has a lot of useful utility. It constantly applies poison, which does damage and reduces the effectiveness of healing abilities by 33 percent. Wells can be used to AOE heal, convert conditions on an ally to boons, convert boons on an enemy to conditions, perpetually blind, and apply vulnerability, all while giving protection through traits. Corruption skills can be used to apply weakness and convert boons on an enemy to conditions. Signet of Undeath is an in-combat revive.
Then there’s Death Shroud. This ability can be used every 10 seconds at the expenditure of life force, which can be obtained by both killing enemies and through specific abilities. It’s very good for survivability and utility, but as a condition necromancer, it’s not a good idea to stay in it for long. Still, it’s worth emphasizing that it’s one of the best survivability cooldowns in the game because life force essentially acts as a second health bar.
However, all of that does come with one major downside: a lack of burst. Necromancers, as ArenaNet has explained, are masters of attrition. Their access to AOE damage, condition damage, solid utility, and deadly debuffs is balanced out by a total inability to spike down a target’s health. This can hurt in some PvE fights and encounters that demand quick kills (for example, Giganticus Lupicus’ grubs are harder to solo for a necromancer), but it’s easily made up by a proper team composition.
The bleed cap is also a potential downside to condition necromancers. The cap of 25 bleeds forces a good group to not get more than one condition-built member. This also makes some traits and stats, particularly those focused on bleed and condition duration, a little worse, but more on that later.
II. Weapon and Death Shroud Abilities
There’s really not much diversity here. Scepter and dagger are the bread-and-butter of the build, with staff acting as a proper secondary weapon for utility and AOE damage. In underwater situations, trident is almost always the best option due to its auto-attack.
Scepter and Dagger:
1. Blood Curse / Rending Curse / Putrid Curse: The first two attacks apply a bleed for 5 seconds default, and the third attack applies poison for 2 seconds default. Get ready to spam this a lot! When every other attack on scepter and dagger is on cooldown, this is the best damage option.
2. Grasping Dead: An AOE that applies cripple and three stacks of bleed for 7 seconds default. It also applies cripple, which is very useful on trash and some bosses that need to be kited. It’s probably the best damage cooldown while using scepter and dagger.
3. Feast of Corruption: Decent direct damage, and scepter’s main source for life force, which is used for Death Shroud.
4. Deathly Swarm: Blinds and transfers one condition from the necromancer to its target, with the potential to bounce to up to three targets. This ability is incredible. It can be coupled with corruption skills to apply self-afflicted conditions on enemy targets. For example, using Blood is Power before Deathly Swarm hits a target will transfer the self-applied bleed to a target, resulting in two extra bleed stacks for 10 seconds default.
5. Enfeebling Blood: An AOE that applies weakness and two stacks of bleed for 10 seconds default. Pretty standard. It’s probably the second best damage cooldown while using scepter and dagger, and weakness is great, as explained in IX. Tips.
Staff:
2. Mark of Blood: Ground-targeted AOE that applies three stacks of bleed for 8 seconds default in an AOE. It also applies a regen to anyone who’s close to the mark when it’s triggered, healing anyone in a target’s melee range. Great AOE and bleed application.
3. Chillblains: Ground-targeted AOE that applies chill for 4 seconds default and poison for 6 seconds default, and it’s AOE. Use this on mobs that heal and/or need to be kited. It also applies a poison combo field, which can be chained with Putrid Mark to apply weakness.
4. Putrid Mark: Ground-targeted AOE that counts as a blast combo finisher and does decent damage, transfers all conditions from the necromancer to a target, and transfers one condition from each ally close to the triggered mark to a target. Probably the most overlooked staff attack. In a coordinated group, this can essentially act as a party-wide single-condition cleanse. The blast combo finisher can be used with Chillblains to apply weakness.
5. Reaper’s Mark: Ground-targeted AOE that fears for 1 second default. Probably the best interrupt in the game. Very useful for pushing back and controlling AOE packs. It used to always work on bosses, but it’s now limited by defiant, a buff typically on champion and boss mobs that needs to be worn down by crowd-control abilities before the mob is vulnerable to crowd control.
Trident:
2. Feast: Applies weakness and does decent direct damage in an AOE around the necromancer, and gives life force if it hits an enemy. Okay for the weakness and life force if enemies are already around. Since underwater Death Shroud isn’t very good as a condition necromancer, it’s not that important to keep life force up underwater except for survivability purposes, so only use this ability when it’s convenient.
3. Foul Current: Shoots the necromancer at a target and leaves a trail that applies poison for 4 seconds default. It’s mostly useless. Its best use is closing distance on an enemy that’s far away. It got slightly buffed by being turned into a poison combo field, but it’s not really worth much.
4. Sinking Tomb: Sinks a target for 2 seconds, and it ignores Defiant. Use on cooldown, assuming it won’t put a mob in a bad position.
5. Frozen Abyss: Does good direct damage, applies about 4 seconds default of chill while charging up, and applies seven stacks of vulnerability for 7 seconds default, but it has a long cast and requires melee range. It got slightly buffed recently by being turned into a blast combo finisher, but it’s still only for building distance on enemies.
Death Shroud (Land):
2. Dark Path: Applies chill and three stacks of bleed for 5 seconds default, but it puts the necromancer in melee range. I will always use it when I switch to necromancer as long as getting into melee doesn’t put me in a bad spot. (Tip: It’s possible to cast this then jump out of Death Shroud immediately after, which usually allows the necromancer to get one other attack in before the projectile lands. It’s also possible to mitigate the forced melee range with Doom and Deathly Swarm.)
3. Doom: Standard single-target fear for 1 second default. Amazing interrupt with a relatively short 20-second cooldown. On bosses that don’t need to be interrupted, I use this on cooldown to wear down Defiant.
4. Life Transfer: Does AOE damage around the necromancer and builds up life force for every target it hits. Great survivability tool and AOE damage, but it’s not worth using for damage in single-target situations. Keep in mind the damage shown on the screen is cumulative for the entire channel, not representative of each tick.
Death Shroud (Underwater):
2. Dark Water: Applies blind for 3 seconds default and poison for 7 seconds default. Worth using with every switch to Death Shroud.
3. Wave of Fear: Applies fear in an AOE cone in front of the necromancer for 2 seconds default. Requires small-to-medium range and facing the target. A downgrade from its land-based alternative, but still useful.
4. Gathering Plague: Transfers all conditions from party members to the necromancer. Very useful when multiple party members are struck with conditions, especially if it’s paired up with Consume Conditions or Plague Signet to immediately remove the absorbed conditions.
III. Traits
One advantage to this build is changing over to world vs. world only requires a few major trait and utility skill changes. For more information on my world vs. world build, click here.
Curses:
Minor traits:
Barbed Precision: Gives critical hits a 66 percent chance to apply one bleed for 1 second default. Decent damage, but it’s slightly held down by the bleed cap since the bleed last for so little time.
Furious Demise: Gain Fury for 5 seconds default when entering Death Shroud. This is pretty amazing, especially when paired up with Barbed Precision and Superior Sigil of Earth. One way good and great condition necromancers are set apart is by maximizing fury through Death Shroud.
Target the Weak: For each condition on a target, boosts direct damage by 2 percent. It’s not amazing since it only works on direct damage, not bleeds and poison. But it is an okay damage boost since all attacks have direct-damage components to them.
Major Traits:
II. Hemophilia: Increases bleed duration by 20 percent. Pretty standard. It is bogged down by bleed cap, as all condition duration is, but it’s still a hefty damage boost.
VII. Master of Corruption: Reduces the cooldown on corruption skills by 20 percent. Essential for Blood is Power and Epidemic. For more information on corruption skills, check out IV. Heals, Utility Skills, and Elite Skills.
XI. Lingering Curse: Increases the duration of all conditions applied by scepter by 33 percent. Unlike all other condition duration increases, this effect is multiplicative, not additive, so it’s actually much stronger than the typical condition duration increase. Its awesomeness is brought down by bleed cap, but it’s still a huge damage boost, and it also increases the duration of cripple on scepter’s No. 2 ability.
Death Magic:
Minor Traits:
Reanimator: Summons a jagged horror whenever the necromancer kills an enemy. More than one can be out at a time as of a recent patch. Honestly, I wish it was possible to disable this trait. The jagged horror can actually hurt on fights like Giganticus Lupicus, and it doesn’t do much of anything.
Protection of the Horde: Grants 20 extra toughness for each minion the necromancer has summoned. Okay trait, considering a necromancer will typically have a flesh golem and jagged horror out in PvE.
Major Traits:
II. Greater Marks: Increases the radius of marks and makes them unblockable. Really great trait. It makes marks easier to aim, makes marks more effective at AOE, and allows the necromancer to do damage through block.
IV. Ritual of Protection: Causes wells to apply 3.6 seconds of protection, which lowers direct damage by 33 percent, to anyone on them when they’re cast. Really amazing utility skill, and I consider it a necessity for Well of Blood.
Blood Magic:
Minor Traits:
Full of Life: Applies regen for 5 seconds default to the necromancer whenever s/he’s hit and below 90 percent health, but it has a 30-second cooldown. Decent survivability passive.
Vampiric: Siphons health on attacks. Decent self-heal.
Major Traits:
I. Dagger Mastery: Lowers cooldown on dagger abilities by 15 percent. Very good for Enfeebling Blood, the second best bleed application while using dagger and scepter, and Deathly Swarm, which is great for transferring conditions.
VIII. Ritual Mastery: Lowers the cooldown on wells by 20 percent. It’s necessary for builds that use Well of Blood since the default cooldown is way too long.
Options and Alternatives:
Although a majority of fights require my base set-up, there are some situations in which I switch out major traits. This can be easily done out of combat, and it’s always advisable in prolonged underwater encounters, where it’s not possible to use wells.
Curses:
IX. Focused Rituals: Allows wells to be ground targeted. In some fights, corruption skills are switched out in favor of well skills, so it’s a good idea to replace Master of Corruption with this.
XII. Withering Precision: Gives critical hits a 25-percent chance to apply weakness for 3 seconds default. Trading Lingering Curse for this is a big DPS loss, but it essentially makes weakness a passive condition on mobs. (For more information on why weakness is awesome, check out IX. Tips.)
Death Magic:
V. Staff Mastery: Staff skills recharge 20 percent faster. Pretty standard cooldown reduction. Amazing for maximizing staff’s AOE and utility. It also makes switching into staff for utility less painful damage-wise by allowing more Mark of Blood spam. It’s a suitable replacement for Greater Marks, particularly in some single-target situations.
VIII. Reaper’s Protection: Makes the necromancer AOE fear whenever s/he is hit with hard crowd control (stun, daze, knockback, knockdown, sink, float, fear, or launch), with a 90-second cooldown. I like this ability in theory, but the cooldown is way too long. Still worth considering against mobs that heavily use crowd control abilities.
X. Flesh of the Master: Gives minions 50 percent more health. It’s an okay replacement for Greater Marks in single-target encounters that don’t require swapping to staff.
Blood Magic:
III. Mark of Evasion: Drops a weaker version of Mark of Blood at the end of a roll, with a 10-second cooldown. It’s good for stacking two extra bleeds for 8 seconds default, but it can encourage some bad rolls and requires melee range.
IV. Heals, Utility Skills, and Elite Skills
Here is my guide for Fractals of the Mists. It shows how my abilities change from encounter to encounter in Fractals of the Mists.
Heals:
Consume Conditions: Absorbs all conditions and heals, with each absorbed condition boosting the heal. The cookie-cutter heal for necromancers without well traits, particularly Ritual Mastery (Well of Blood’s cooldown is too long without it). The best part is this heal essentially ignores poison’s healing debuff and, in fact, gets stronger from absorbing poison. It can also be chained with corruption skills to boost the heal. In PvE, I mostly use this underwater, but it can be okay in some condition-heavy encounters.
Utility Skills:
Corruption Skills: Corruption abilities provide utility on top of the occasional damage. The downside to them is they each apply a condition on the necromancer, but this self-applied condition can be transferred to mobs with Deathly Swarm and Putrid Mark.
Blood is Power: Applies two stacks of bleeds for 30 seconds default on the target, grants 10 stacks of might to the necromancer, and applies two stacks of bleeds for 10 seconds default on the necromancer, all with a 24-second cooldown if traited for corruption skills. This ability is a huge damage boost. The bleeds are nice by themselves, especially when the self-applied bleeds are transferred to an enemy target. But the best part is the might, which grants 350 condition damage for 14.4 seconds. The might is retroactive, so it affects all bleeds already on a target. At lv. 80, this translates to 17.5 more damage per bleed tick for about two-thirds of the time as long as Blood is Power is used on cooldown. (Some people claim this ability sometimes does not work, but, in my experience, that’s not true. It has never failed me as long as I’m facing my target and within range.)
Corrupt Boon: Dispels all boons on a target and turns them into conditions. For information on what the boons are converted into, click here. Decent for mobs that stack boons, particularly for mobs that stack stability because stability can be corrupted into fear. (Some people claim this ability sometimes does not work, but, in my experience, that’s not true. It has never failed me as long as I’m facing my target and within range.)
Epidemic: Spreads all conditions on a target to up to five extra targets, with only a 12-second cooldown when traited. Epidemic is the staple of the condition necromancer. It is the best AOE in the game, allowing the spread of 25 stacks of bleeds, other damaging conditions, and any utility-based condition. However, it’s not very good on boss fights that are focused on single-target damage.
Corrosive Poison Cloud: Ground-targeted AOE that applies weakness and poison on a target for 3 seconds default instantly and then every 3 seconds for 12 seconds, but it applies weakness to the necromancer for 6 seconds default. It also acts as a poison combo field, which can be used for more weakness through a blast combo finisher (staff No. 4) and for poison through a projectile (staff No. 1). This is an overlooked ability, mostly because a lot of players underestimate weakness. For more information on how awesome weakness is, go toIX. Tips. I usually replace Epidemic with Corrosive Poison Cloud for single-target situations.
Signets: Useful for a variety of utility. I usually use one signet in my typical load-out.
Plague Signet: Makes the necromancer absorb one condition from each group member every 10 seconds, and it can be used to transfer all conditions on the necromancer to a target. It sounds better in theory than it works in practice, mostly because the 10-second pulse timer is too long. I generally recommend Well of Power over this for condition removal.
Signet of the Locust: Grants 25-percent move speed, and it heals the necromancer and damages a target when activated. Never use the active ability for this, and only use it for the move speed. It’s a huge speed boost, so use it on fights that require heavy kiting or to move around between pulls or while avoiding mobs.
Spectral Skills: These abilities are too selfish, and their cooldowns are usually too long to be effective. Spectral Walk used to be decent for kiting, but there’s really no reason to use it over Signet of Locust in PvE. (In PvP, Spectral Walk is sometimes good for the stun break and teleport.)
Summon Flesh Wurm: Summons an immobile wurm that does damage. The wurm can also be sacrificed to teleport to it and poison foes surrounding it. It’s a decent damage option for single-target situations, but I usually prefer Corrosive Poison Cloud for the poison and weakness.
Wells: Wells are amazing utility. When traited for them, they are probably the best support a Necromancer can bring. They also drop dark combo fields, which gives blind on blast finishers (Putrid Mark) and life steal on projectiles (Necrotic Grasp). However, using them comes at the cost of damage since they typically replace Blood is Power and Epidemic over Signet of Undeath since a revive is always useful and great utility.
Well of Power: Player-based AOE that removes one condition on allies and the necromancer every second for 5 seconds, and each condition removed turns into a boon, with a 1-minute default cooldown. For a full list of how the conditions are converted, click here. This is probably the best option for a necromancer looking for party-wide condition removal. It is particularly useful on the Legendary Imbued Shaman in the grawl fractal because it turns its nearly constant burn into aegis, giving more survivability for a fight that desperately requires it.
Well of Corruption: Player-based AOE that removes one boon on enemies every second for 5 seconds, and each boon removed turns into a condition, with a 45-second default cooldown. For a full list of how the boons are converted, click here. Corrupt Boon is preferable unless the necromancer is traited for wells, and, even then, the fact Corrupt Boon dispels all boons at once typically puts it over the edge.
Well of Suffering: Player-based AOE that applies two stacks of vulnerability for 5 seconds default every second, lasting for 5 seconds total, with a 45-second default cooldown. The vulnerability can be helpful for party members, but I feel it lasts for too little time to be effective. Still, it can be useful on fights in which conditions are marginalized, like the last two bosses of the dredge fractal.
Elite Skills:
Summon Flesh Golem: Summons a pet that does decent damage. The AI for the pet can be really stupid, and the pet dies a lot more than I would like. But it generally attacks whatever the necromancer is attacking and does decent damage, effectively acting as a big damage-over-time skill. It also has a useful knockdown. This is my typical elite skill.
Plague: Turns the necromancer into a virulent cloud that can apply conditions. This is really only useful for the AOE blind and massive boost in toughness because it doesn’t enough bleeds to make up for the loss of AOE bleed application from scepter and dagger or staff. The AOE blind is amazing, however, on packs of mobs, particularly on trash in the Cliffside and Ascalonian fractals.
V. Gear
Armor, Weapons, and Trinkets:
I stick with rabid stat combination, or condition damage, precision, and toughness. The precision is good because it turns the Barbed Precision trait and Superior Sigil of Earth into huge damage boosts. The toughness is good for two reasons: First, it’s a great boost to survivability, which is vastly underrated in dungeons where some damage is too difficult or downright impossible to avoid. Second, the toughness interacts with consumables and the full set of Superior Rune of the Undead to provide a decent boost to condition damage.
However, there could be a case for power, condition damage, and precision if survivability isn’t an issue for whatever reason. Power does not benefit conditions, but necromancers have enough direct damage for it to be a decent direct-damage boost. Still, even without a full set of Rune of the Undead, this stat combination has less overall condition damage than the rabid stat combination because it prioritizes power over condition damage and precision.
Tips for Gearing Up:
Getting a set with rabid stats — condition damage, precision, and toughness — can be a pain, but it’s possible with time and patience.
On the trading post, look up the Khilbron’s set for armor. For weapons, look up a Mystic Wand (scepter), Malefacterym (dagger), Bramblethorne (staff), and Limitless Furnace (trident).
Trinkets and backpacks are only available on the trading post. For trinkets, get two Tortured Root accessories, one Colossus Fang amulet, and two Plague rings. For a backpack, look up a rare-quality rabid backpack. Rare-quality rabid trinkets are also an option if exotic gear is too expensive.
Some of the armor is also accessible through karma. The head, shoulder, hand, and leg pieces from karma vendors. Click here for the full list and locations of the vendors on Dulfy‘s amazing website.
For an underwater breather, karma gear is the best option. Buy the Gavbeorn Breather of the Afflicted at Gavbeorn’s Waypoint after the Temple of Melandru event. (Also, underwater breathers replace helmets underwater, so remember to slot it with a rune.)
It’s also possible to get rabid weapons and armor from dungeon explorable modes. Caudecus’s Manor, Twilight Arbor, Honor of the Waves, and Arah provide the full sets.
After all that’s set up, it’s time for ascended gear. The rabid ascended rings are Khilbron’s Phylactery and Ouroboros Loop, which are obtained in the Fractals of the Mists. The rabid ascended backpack is Endless Quiver, which is made at the Mystic Forge.
Runes:
The full set of Rune of the Undead is one option. It provides decent survivability and turns some toughness into condition damage. In straight math terms, it’s the best possibility for maxing out bleed ticks. With my gear, which caps toughness at 1,875, it’s 93.75 condition damage. That is nearly the same amount of condition damage on a chest piece. In total, it adds about 5 damage per bleed tick, or about 3.9 percent more bleed damage with no might.
One alternative is three Runes of the Krait and three Runes of the Afflicted for some decent condition damage and condition duration. This set has potential, but I feel it’s bogged down by the bleed cap. The cap ruins condition duration as a stat if there is more than one condition-built member in a group. If a target is consistently capped at 25 bleeds, it’s better to make those bleeds tick for more damage than it is to be capable of stacking more. But if there aren’t any other bleeders in the group, the condition duration set is more DPS.
Jewels:
Unfortunately, my build is stuck with the rare-quality Crest of the Rabid to maximize condition damage through condition damage, precision, and toughness. Like stated earlier, Exquisite Coral Jewels are also viable for condition damage, power, and precision, but it does give less condition damage overall.
Sigils:
For the scepter and staff, Superior Sigil of Earth is standard. It gives critical hits a 60 percent chance to apply a stack of bleed for 5 seconds default. This is a huge part of the build, and it’s why condition necromancers want precision.
For the dagger, it’s more about personal preference. I prefer Superior Sigil of Accuracy for 5-percent critical hit chance, but Superior Sigil of Agony is also viable for longer-lasting bleeds and Superior Sigil of Corruption is good if it’s possible to keep 10 to 25 stacks. I tend to avoid other proc-based sigils because they share an inner cooldown with Superior Sigil of Earth, so it’s better to grab a sigil with a passive boost.
VI. Consumables
Affordable Options:
Super Veggie Pizza: Food buff. This gives 60 condition damage and 36 percent condition duration. It’s the affordable, nearly max DPS food for condition necromancers. It typically sells for about 1 silver on the trading post.
Eggplant Fritter: Food buff. This gives 60 condition damage and 26 percent magic find. It’s the affordable, nearly max DPS food with magic find for condition necromancers. It typically sells for about 45 copper on the trading post.
Quality Tuning Crystal: Miscellaneous buff. This converts 5 percent of toughness and 3 percent of vitality into condition damage. It’s a massive damage gain, especially when paired with condition damage, precision, and toughness gear. It typically sells for about 30 copper on the trading post.
Best Options:
Rare Veggie Pizza: Food buff. This gives 70 condition damage and 40 percent condition duration. It’s the best DPS food for condition necromancers. It typically sells for about 4 silver on the trading post.
Spicy Pumpkin Cookie: Food buff. This gives 70 condition damage and 30 percent magic find. It’s the best DPS food with magic find for condition necromancers. It typically sells for about 88 copper on the trading post.
Master Tuning Crystal: Miscellaneous buff. This converts 6 percent of toughness and 4 percent of vitality into condition damage. It’s the best damage gain, especially when paired with condition damage, precision, and toughness gear. It typically sells for about 3 silver on the trading post.
VII. Skill Priority
For the most part, this will cover weapon rotations. Utility skills are highly situational, with Blood is Power and Epidemic acting as exceptions due to their damage-based nature. Those utility skills should be top priority — assuming other bleeds are up in the case of Epidemic — over all weapon skills. Also, read VIII. Use of Death Shroud for how to maximize Death Shroud in rotations for DPS.
Scepter and Dagger vs. Staff:
The most important thing to know about the two weapon sets for condition necromancer is staff is only there for AOE and utility, while the scepter-and-dagger set is much better for damage. The scepter-and-dagger set is capable of stacking twice as many bleeds, which is obviously ideal for maximizing condition damage. The poison, chill, condition removal, and fear from staff are still great for dealing with large packs of mobs, but they’re simply not as good as the scepter-and-dagger set is for damage.
What this means is staying in staff for too long leads to a big drop in damage done. In the ideal situation, a condition necromancer should be using the scepter-and-dagger set as much as possible, and staff should only be changed to for 10 seconds (weapon swap cooldown) when it’s needed to AOE mobs or fear.
Single-Target Situations on Land:
Stick to scepter and dagger. The ideal priority is Grasping Dead (No. 2) over Enfeebling Blood (No. 5) over Feast of Corruption (No. 3) over Blood Curse / Rending Curse / Putrid Curse (No. 1). Deathly Swarm (No. 4) is good when afflicted with conditions, particularly after Blood is Power is used.
In some situations, it is worth changing to staff for the chill, poison, condition removal and fear. When to swap is entirely situational. Just keep in mind changing to staff is a large DPS loss in single-target encounters due to the very weak Necrotic Grasp (staff No. 1), and tread carefully.
AOE Situations on Land:
Cooldown spam! Start with staff, use all the marks, even Reaper’s Mark (No. 5) for the fear. Try to use Chillblains (No. 3) before Putrid Mark (No. 4) for the weakness-applying combo. After marks are used, switch to scepter and dagger, use Grasping Dead (No. 2) and Enfeebling Blood (No. 5), then use Epidemic (utility skill). Change weapons as much as possible after that, and use Epidemic on cooldown.
Underwater:
For the most part, stick to Crimson Tide (No. 1) spam. It’s the highest DPS possible underwater. Also make sure to use Sinking Tomb on cooldown for the crowd control.
VIII. Use of Death Shroud
Death Shroud is one of the best tools necromancers have. It is a massive survivability cooldown and, with traits, it can be used effectively for condition damage. Unfortunately, it’s one ability that is woefully misunderstood, so it deserves its own special section!
Gaining Life Force:
For the most part, condition necromancers should be gaining life force naturally through Feast of Corruption and killing mobs. It’s not something anyone should think about too much. However, it’s important to keep in mind that killing mobs is a huge boost of life force, so if a mob is low and the necromancer isn’t capped on life force, it should be prioritized quickly for life force gain.
Survivability:
This should be what most life force goes into. As a condition necromancer, it’s not a good idea to stick around in Death Shroud because it means bleeds fall off, and bleeds are the main source of damage. So save up that life force for survivability! There are a few good moments to utilize the survivability, particularly when a heal is down or when it’s necessary to soak up conditions and other damage-over-time effects (Agony in fractals!) or any big hits from bosses. I use this a lot to soak up AOE attacks (pesky red circles) when I can’t or don’t want to use a roll.
Damage:
As a condition necromancer, Death Shroud is used mostly for fury in combination with the Furious Demise trait. Fury, which gives a 20 percent chance to crit, nearly guarantees critical hits when a condition necromancer is built for precision. To do this, simply tap the Death Shroud button (F1 default) twice to dip in and out of Death Shroud and obtain fury.
In most fights, I use Death Shroud on cooldown to keep fury up as much as possible. I only save it on certain fights in which I know I’ll need Death Shroud for survivability (examples: Giganticus Lupicus in Arah and the Legendary Imbued Shaman in the grawl fractal).
Constant use of Death Shroud essentially means two or three extra stacks of bleeds, a substantial damage increase.
To further maximize the Fury, I usually try to use it when I’m only going to spam scepter No. 1. This can stack more bleeds due to scepter No. 1′s fast cast time.
No. 2:
In both land and water, Dark Path and Dark Water (No. 2 abilities) are the only really useful damaging abilities for a condition necromancer. On land, No. 2 applies bleed and chill, but at the cost of forcing melee range. On water, it applies poison and blind, which are decent damage and utility. Except for special situations noted inII. Weapon and Death Shroud Abilities, avoid other abilities.
IX. Tips
Epidemic for Single-Target Damage:
Most bosses have adds, and most necromancer abilities are AOE. This opens up a huge window for essentially doubling the amount of bleeds on a target. The process is simple: Stack bleeds on the focus target and an extra mob with AOEs, target the extra mob, and Epidemic. Voila, conditions on the focus target are now doubled. If used effectively, this can let a single condition necromancer push the bleed cap in fights that consistently involve extra mobs.
Maximizing Weakness:
This is the most under-appreciated condition in the game. In simple terms, it makes 50 percent of non-critical hits do half the damage. This can be a huge damage decrease depending on a mob’s critical hit chance. Even if a mob has 50-percent critical hit chance, this is still a 12.5-percent reduction in damage overall. That can seriously save lives and heals!
Wear Down Defiant:
As explained earlier, Defiant is a buff typically seen on champion and boss mobs that makes them immune to crowd-control abilities. It is explained in full detail here. It’s important to wear down Defiant to maximize the amount of crowd control that is available on a boss, so it’s a good idea to use Reaper’s Mark while in staff*, Doom while in Death Shroud, and Charge (flesh golem ability) as much as possible. There are some situations where it’s a good idea to save the crowd control (interrupting a heal or big attack, for example), but wearing down Defiant is a big help in most fights.
*As good as wearing down Defiant is, never switch to staff just for the Reaper’s Mark. Since staff’s No. 1 skill is such awful damage for a condition necromancer, it’s typically not worth the damage loss.
X. Frequently Asked Questions
When should condition necromancers swap to staff in single-target situations?
It’s very situational. When I really need to slow down damage and build distance on an enemy, I’ll change to staff to chill (No. 3) and fear (No. 5). When I really need to get some conditions off myself or some teammates, I’ll change to staff to use Putrid Mark (No. 4). Otherwise, I stick to scepter and dagger for the damage.
Why not 10 points into Spite for Reaper’s Might?
As good as the might is, I don’t think it’s worth it. There are two problems with this:
First, the slight DPS gain from might is not worth letting bleeds drop. Here is my math comparing both scenarios, assuming that the necromancer stays in Death Shroud for five Life Blasts, and excluding any bleeds from crits for the sake of simplicity:
Life Blast spam for Reaper’s Might: 4,575 damage total = (8.75 extra bleed damage from might * 15 seconds of might * 12 bleeds on average) + 3,000 direct damage
Scepter No. 1 spam: 8,685 damage total = (132 bleed tick without might * 8-second duration * 6 stacks) + (243 poison tick without might * 3 stacks) + 1,620 direct damage
Second, fury from Death Shroud benefits scepter’s No. 1 attack more because it has half the cast time as Life Blast. That means more crits, which means more chances at stacking an extra bleed. That means the full math would favor scepter No. 1 even more.
Why not Sigil of Battle?
First, you really shouldn’t be swapping that much in single-target situations, which actually makes Sigil of Battle nearly worthless on a lot of bosses. Second, it shares an inner cooldown with Superior Sigil of Earth, so a swap can potentially delay extra bleed stacks.
Why not might duration runes (two Runes of the Fire, two Runes of Hoelbrak, two Runes of Strength)?
For this, it’s best to do a straight-up mathematical comparison. The math above for Reaper’s Might shows might duration would have to be about tripled for it to be on-par with scepter No. 1 spam, which is impossible even with might duration runes. So it’s best to just look at Blood is Power, the only other source for might available to necromancers.
Here is the mathematical head-to-head comparing bleed damage gained from a full set of Rune of the Undead and the might duration rune set:
Full set of Rune of the Undead: 14.075 total bleed damage per tick = (28 condition damage from first rune + 55 condition damage from third rune + 100 condition damage from fifth rune + 98.5 condition damage from sixth rune) * 0.05 bleed coefficient for condition damage
Might duration rune set: 5.25 total bleed damage per tick = ((12 seconds of might duration from Blood is Power * 0.6 increased might duration) / 24-second cooldown on Blood is Power) * (350 condition damage from Blood is Power * 0.05 bleed coefficient for condition damage)
It’s a lot of complicated math, but it shows the extra uptime on Blood is Power’s might gives about 37.3 percent of the bleeding damage in the long term in comparison to a full set of Rune of the Undead. Even worse, that’s assuming that Blood is Power is always being used on cooldown, which is unrealistic.
Plus, since Blood is Power is the only major source of might necromancers have, it would be required in every encounter to maximize the might duration rune set. That’s fairly limiting. There are a few boss fights where I don’t run with Blood is Power at all, particularly the Legendary Imbued Shaman encounter in the grawl fractal.
The might duration rune set does come with the upside of also increasing direct damage, but the build this guide is for is foremost a condition build. Scepter and off-hand dagger also have pretty terrible coefficients when it comes to power, so any power gain is really low on the priority list for a build that mostly relies on scepter and dagger.
Why not a hybrid gear set-up?
The main reason hybrid builds, meaning builds that combine power and condition damage, are mediocre inGuild Wars 2 is because the stats from the main DPS archetypes — condition damage, precision, and toughness in rabid and power, precision, and critical damage in berserker — scale better when taken together.
For example, with berserker gear, precision is geared toward making critical strikes more frequent, but in the same set-up, critical strikes actually get stronger. So every percent of critical strike chance (21 precision at level 80) actually becomes better as the critical strikes triggered become stronger through power and critical damage. The math behind this is simple: With no extra critical damage, 1 percent chance to crit, or 21 precision, only adds about 0.5 percent DPS. With 50 percent extra critical damage, that 21 precision suddenly adds about 1 percent DPS because the critical strikes triggered are now doing double the damage.
It’s the same concept with condition damage, toughness, and bleeds in the rabid set-up. With rabid gear, precision triggers more bleeds, while condition damage and, to a much lesser degree, toughness all add to bleed damage. So each point of precision becomes stronger with each point of condition damage and toughness because the more frequent bleeds also tick harder.
In other words, it’s better to focus on two or three main stats, especially as each individual stat gets higher, because of how the stats synergize with each other. If a hybrid approach is taken to gearing, the lack of focus actually makes a build do exponentially less damage in the long term.
XI. Revisions and Additions
Jan. 3, 2012: Added a clarification about the scepter-and-dagger set vs. staff in VII. Skill Priority. Added an explanation about the advantage of range in I. Why Condition Necromancer?
Dec. 28, 2012: Adjusted wording and a typo and removed a question and answer from X. Frequently Asked Questions since it was a bit misleading, all with the help of Ancallan on the official forums.
Dec. 26, 2012: Clarified that the trait build linked in III. Traits is meant to act as a base, not a definitive set.
Dec. 25, 2012: Added a question and answer about hybrid gearing to X. Frequently Asked Questions. Added information for underwater equipment in V. Gear.
Dec. 23, 2012: Added and updated images. Added a question and answer to X. Frequently Asked Questionsabout using staff in single-target situations.
Dec. 22, 2012: After making it through the apocalypse, I decided to edit III. Traits to better encourage the use of Well of Blood.
Dec. 21, 2012: Added Summon Flesh Wurm to the minion section in IV. Heals, Utility Skills, and Elite Skills. Corrected wording for some skill descriptions.
Dec. 20, 2012: Added a question and answer to X. Frequently Asked Questions about might duration runes. Added dungeon gear with rabid stats to gearing tips in V. Gear. Adjusted wording on some ability descriptions.
Dec. 19, 2012: Added questions and answers to X. Frequently Asked Questions. Added VI. Consumables, largely with the help of notpowercat on Reddit. Added more information, partly with the help of bigballer_status on Reddit. Ran some corrections, largely with the help of lettucemode and Drarnor Kunoram on the official forums and froghorn on Reddit. Fixed some typos.