Figured I'd throw this up here 'cause it's a bit different than the standard Necro builds, and I found it quite good so far. :alien3: And hey if anyone has ideas to make it better, I'd love to hear 'em.
So the premise: A PvE Necro build based on the life-stealing traits of the Blood tree, enabling a nice combination of tankiness and direct damage.
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fQAQRBHbhG2IjWpe3mnG9eCQmRzWP9gbv/G+QuAThe Build
For stats, I'm using the Knight armor set with Knight accessories and gems. The gear has toughness as its main stat with precision and power second. The gems have precision first and power/toughness second. Don't know why it's switched but it works very awesomely here, and I have not found any runes that would benefit me as well as these.
*When prioritizing self-heals, toughness becomes a very important stat to make each heal worth more.
*The Vampiric traits don't benefit from healing power, so that's not an option.
*Heals on crits! Need moar crits!! Oh hai precision.
So thanks to the 25-point minor trait in Death, both toughness and precision double as offensive and defensive stats. Throw in some power to actually kill things and it's good to go.
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Now the traits:
30 Blood: 20 points is the minimum necessary for increased siphoning and heals on crits. Personally I love many of the Blood traits so I went all the way in. I decided not to get Well siphoning for a few reasons: it's not always easy to keep mobs in your Wells, all Wells have long cooldowns (which could be reduced with another Blood trait, but that would mean cutting out one of the other siphoning traits), and I like being able to do more than plop a few circles on the ground every minute or so. Mark of Evasion is my favorite for its regen every 10 seconds. Quickening Thirst is nice for getting around. I don't use the others so much with this build.
15 Spite: So Necros only really have 2 damage trees: Spite (direct damage) and Curses (condition damage). If you want to do teh damagez, you're pretty much stuck with one or the other (Life Blast from your Death Shroud scales more off Power than anything; the added life force pool size from the Soul Reaping tree doesn't add much damage). I tried both, and they both work decently, but I found that when building a Conditionmancer you really just don't need the Vampiric traits at all. You can kite everything to death pretty well, so those points are better spent elsewhere.
Daggers however are the highest dps weapons Necros have, and they are fantastic for this build for many reasons: They put you in melee range (so you'll need that healing more
), they hit fast (more heals), and the Blood tree favors Daggers. Which means direct damage, which means Spite. But I don't like most of the spite traits, and I wanted to be more tanky, so I only put enough points to get the boost to healing power (which affects the Dagger 2 ability nicely).
25 Death: Also a good amount of power comes from this tree, with the 25-point minor. With the subpar gear I have right now I'm getting over 80 base power from this trait. Not bad. Dark Armor is pretty nice (and also gives +20 power). Necros have 3 channeled abilities to make it work: One on Dagger MH, one on the Axe, and one from Death Shroud. So, I'm using a Dagger MH and an Axe for my 2 weapon sets. You could also use a Staff instead of the Axe and get increased mark size, but seeing how the Staff does not go as well with the Vampiricness I left it out.
I find it amusing how toughness also adds power and healing power. Whee super stat!
...Ok, you only get a quarter of a percent of your toughness as healing power (that's, what, 5 healing power for 2000 toughness), but it's the principle, man.
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Weapons!
As previously stated I opted for the Dagger and Axe as my main-hand weapons for their channeled abilities. Another thing to consider is multi-hit abilities, like Axe 2 (8 hits for the price of one). The heals from your Vampiric traits are the same regardless of your damage, so multiple small hits = more heals. The Dagger and Axe both attack fast, which helps too. For off-hands I'm using a Warhorn for Insect Swarm (10 heals w00t) and a Focus for the Vulnerability+Regen. This build can stack vulnerability crazy fast, which will help its lacking damage.
The Staff is also a good weapon for practically anything. If you want to use it, drop the Axe. Which offhand you keep depends... I'd keep Focus for single-target and Warhorn for multi-target. A couple reasons for this: The Focus's Regen and Vulnerability spell bounces, so it's terribly unreliable with multiple targets. Even in a dungeon against a boss, it'll bounce off party members and therefore you might not get the full 12 stacks of vulnerability. Regen is awesome, but you don't know where it'll go. (The best way to prevent crazy bouncing is stand right on top of your target. Your party members probably won't get regen this way, but oh well. You're a Necro, not a damned Guardian.) The chill/boon removal is pretty situational, so meh. For the Warhorn, well, it doesn't do much. The daze is ok (better for PvP), but Locust Swarm is damned amazing. With enough enemies, it'll fill your life force from 0 to full. Plus that healing (and crippling). Oh, and gotta love sprint. Too much awesomeness in one ability!mg: Unfortunately, it does crap damage.
(BTW, random fun trick: Activating Locust Swarm before entering Death Shroud will fill your life force while in DS, so long as it's hitting enemies. Which means more powerful Life Blasts. Add piercing from the Unyielding Blast trait and, as long as you aren't taking tons of damage (minion tanks?), AoE like crayzeh. But, that's another build. Maybe I'll post that one here too.)
Now I know Dagger OH is a very popular choice for its condition removal and awesome CC, but I'm intent on maxing out my Vampiricness xD I got Shrouded Removal from the Death tree to help with conditions, and also use Well of Power if needed. Blind and Weakness can be obtained from combos.
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Abilitahs
I'm finding it very difficult to define these sections because they all tie into each other. xD
The build lacks damage because I only have 15 points in Spite and my gear prioritizes toughness. One way to help this is stacking vulnerability, which I have from the Axe and Focus. I get more with Spectral Wall. It can be hard to use in dungeons, but if done right you can get 20 stacks of vulnerability with this spell alone, + protection. The protection doesn't stack, but you can get rebuffed after the first buff wears off. Well of Suffering adds more vulnerability + tons of damage. And, heyo, both of those utilities are combo fields. So my 3rd utility is Summon Bone Minions, for 2 blast finishers, which also add some very nice, albeit hard to control, AoE damage.
Now on the note of combos, Necros are capable of producing 4 types of combo fields: Light, Dark, Poison, and Ethereal. And because of these I'm still very torn between an Axe and Staff, because the Staff not only has a Poison field but also 2 finishers (and a ton of other awesome things).
Light comes only from Well of Blood; you could use it though I'd strongly recommend getting Ritual Mastery if so. And teach your party members to use it. (It removes conditions too, mhm.)
Spectral Wall is your only Ethereal Field and blasting it gives a random buff, which is all right, but the best ones are Dark and Poison. Dark creates blindness with blast and life-steal with projectiles, and Poison creates weakness with blast and, um, more poison with projectiles. Without the Staff, the only finishers here are from exploding the 2 Bone Minions, but at least they have a short recharge time.
Regardless, because of the comboness, I'll always have either a Well or Corrosive Poison Cloud for one utility. Any one would do, pick depending on the situation. (Well of Darkness is silly for combo use though, double blind doesn't help much.) I default to Well of Power for the condition removal. If you do not need protection or condition removal, you can go Bone Minions, Well of Suffering, and Corrosive Poison Cloud. Just keep in mind that Corrosive Poison Cloud does give you weakness for a pretty long time. If you have Shrouded Removal, no problem, just go in DS after using it.
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It's important to note that the Vampiric traits are still pretty weak. Having them does not mean you'll never need to dodge or heal again. It will not recover you from taking a hit for half your health. But it does give some very nice sustainability while your heal is on cooldown and helps you take better advantage of your most high-risk high-reward weapon.
If possible I'd like to add more damage to this build, but am not sure in what form (power/crit damage?). Unfortunately it seems like I'll either have to sacrifice toughness or precision to do so.
Thoughts/comments welcome. /blob
So the premise: A PvE Necro build based on the life-stealing traits of the Blood tree, enabling a nice combination of tankiness and direct damage.
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fQAQRBHbhG2IjWpe3mnG9eCQmRzWP9gbv/G+QuAThe Build
For stats, I'm using the Knight armor set with Knight accessories and gems. The gear has toughness as its main stat with precision and power second. The gems have precision first and power/toughness second. Don't know why it's switched but it works very awesomely here, and I have not found any runes that would benefit me as well as these.
*When prioritizing self-heals, toughness becomes a very important stat to make each heal worth more.
*The Vampiric traits don't benefit from healing power, so that's not an option.
*Heals on crits! Need moar crits!! Oh hai precision.
So thanks to the 25-point minor trait in Death, both toughness and precision double as offensive and defensive stats. Throw in some power to actually kill things and it's good to go.
*********************************************************************************
Now the traits:
30 Blood: 20 points is the minimum necessary for increased siphoning and heals on crits. Personally I love many of the Blood traits so I went all the way in. I decided not to get Well siphoning for a few reasons: it's not always easy to keep mobs in your Wells, all Wells have long cooldowns (which could be reduced with another Blood trait, but that would mean cutting out one of the other siphoning traits), and I like being able to do more than plop a few circles on the ground every minute or so. Mark of Evasion is my favorite for its regen every 10 seconds. Quickening Thirst is nice for getting around. I don't use the others so much with this build.
15 Spite: So Necros only really have 2 damage trees: Spite (direct damage) and Curses (condition damage). If you want to do teh damagez, you're pretty much stuck with one or the other (Life Blast from your Death Shroud scales more off Power than anything; the added life force pool size from the Soul Reaping tree doesn't add much damage). I tried both, and they both work decently, but I found that when building a Conditionmancer you really just don't need the Vampiric traits at all. You can kite everything to death pretty well, so those points are better spent elsewhere.
Daggers however are the highest dps weapons Necros have, and they are fantastic for this build for many reasons: They put you in melee range (so you'll need that healing more
), they hit fast (more heals), and the Blood tree favors Daggers. Which means direct damage, which means Spite. But I don't like most of the spite traits, and I wanted to be more tanky, so I only put enough points to get the boost to healing power (which affects the Dagger 2 ability nicely).25 Death: Also a good amount of power comes from this tree, with the 25-point minor. With the subpar gear I have right now I'm getting over 80 base power from this trait. Not bad. Dark Armor is pretty nice (and also gives +20 power). Necros have 3 channeled abilities to make it work: One on Dagger MH, one on the Axe, and one from Death Shroud. So, I'm using a Dagger MH and an Axe for my 2 weapon sets. You could also use a Staff instead of the Axe and get increased mark size, but seeing how the Staff does not go as well with the Vampiricness I left it out.
I find it amusing how toughness also adds power and healing power. Whee super stat!
...Ok, you only get a quarter of a percent of your toughness as healing power (that's, what, 5 healing power for 2000 toughness), but it's the principle, man.
*********************************************************************************
Weapons!
As previously stated I opted for the Dagger and Axe as my main-hand weapons for their channeled abilities. Another thing to consider is multi-hit abilities, like Axe 2 (8 hits for the price of one). The heals from your Vampiric traits are the same regardless of your damage, so multiple small hits = more heals. The Dagger and Axe both attack fast, which helps too. For off-hands I'm using a Warhorn for Insect Swarm (10 heals w00t) and a Focus for the Vulnerability+Regen. This build can stack vulnerability crazy fast, which will help its lacking damage.
The Staff is also a good weapon for practically anything. If you want to use it, drop the Axe. Which offhand you keep depends... I'd keep Focus for single-target and Warhorn for multi-target. A couple reasons for this: The Focus's Regen and Vulnerability spell bounces, so it's terribly unreliable with multiple targets. Even in a dungeon against a boss, it'll bounce off party members and therefore you might not get the full 12 stacks of vulnerability. Regen is awesome, but you don't know where it'll go. (The best way to prevent crazy bouncing is stand right on top of your target. Your party members probably won't get regen this way, but oh well. You're a Necro, not a damned Guardian.) The chill/boon removal is pretty situational, so meh. For the Warhorn, well, it doesn't do much. The daze is ok (better for PvP), but Locust Swarm is damned amazing. With enough enemies, it'll fill your life force from 0 to full. Plus that healing (and crippling). Oh, and gotta love sprint. Too much awesomeness in one ability!
mg: Unfortunately, it does crap damage.(BTW, random fun trick: Activating Locust Swarm before entering Death Shroud will fill your life force while in DS, so long as it's hitting enemies. Which means more powerful Life Blasts. Add piercing from the Unyielding Blast trait and, as long as you aren't taking tons of damage (minion tanks?), AoE like crayzeh. But, that's another build. Maybe I'll post that one here too.
)Now I know Dagger OH is a very popular choice for its condition removal and awesome CC, but I'm intent on maxing out my Vampiricness xD I got Shrouded Removal from the Death tree to help with conditions, and also use Well of Power if needed. Blind and Weakness can be obtained from combos.
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Abilitahs
I'm finding it very difficult to define these sections because they all tie into each other. xD
The build lacks damage because I only have 15 points in Spite and my gear prioritizes toughness. One way to help this is stacking vulnerability, which I have from the Axe and Focus. I get more with Spectral Wall. It can be hard to use in dungeons, but if done right you can get 20 stacks of vulnerability with this spell alone, + protection. The protection doesn't stack, but you can get rebuffed after the first buff wears off. Well of Suffering adds more vulnerability + tons of damage. And, heyo, both of those utilities are combo fields. So my 3rd utility is Summon Bone Minions, for 2 blast finishers, which also add some very nice, albeit hard to control, AoE damage.
Now on the note of combos, Necros are capable of producing 4 types of combo fields: Light, Dark, Poison, and Ethereal. And because of these I'm still very torn between an Axe and Staff, because the Staff not only has a Poison field but also 2 finishers (and a ton of other awesome things).
Light comes only from Well of Blood; you could use it though I'd strongly recommend getting Ritual Mastery if so. And teach your party members to use it. (It removes conditions too, mhm.)
Spectral Wall is your only Ethereal Field and blasting it gives a random buff, which is all right, but the best ones are Dark and Poison. Dark creates blindness with blast and life-steal with projectiles, and Poison creates weakness with blast and, um, more poison with projectiles. Without the Staff, the only finishers here are from exploding the 2 Bone Minions, but at least they have a short recharge time.
Regardless, because of the comboness, I'll always have either a Well or Corrosive Poison Cloud for one utility. Any one would do, pick depending on the situation. (Well of Darkness is silly for combo use though, double blind doesn't help much.) I default to Well of Power for the condition removal. If you do not need protection or condition removal, you can go Bone Minions, Well of Suffering, and Corrosive Poison Cloud. Just keep in mind that Corrosive Poison Cloud does give you weakness for a pretty long time. If you have Shrouded Removal, no problem, just go in DS after using it.
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It's important to note that the Vampiric traits are still pretty weak. Having them does not mean you'll never need to dodge or heal again. It will not recover you from taking a hit for half your health. But it does give some very nice sustainability while your heal is on cooldown and helps you take better advantage of your most high-risk high-reward weapon.
If possible I'd like to add more damage to this build, but am not sure in what form (power/crit damage?). Unfortunately it seems like I'll either have to sacrifice toughness or precision to do so.
Thoughts/comments welcome. /blob