Necromancer - Vanilla Condi Necro

The community gave this build a rating, making it top-tier: Great

Focused on: Condition damage and Boon removal

Designed for: PvP Conquest

Difficulty:

Easy

This build was last updated on July 14, 2024 and is up to date for the October 8, 2024 patch.

Overview

A Condition Necromancer PvP build with a big focus on Fear chains, made to teamfight. Usable by F2P players as well.

Skill Bar

Scepter/Sword

Staff

Utility

Skill Variants

Weapons

• To play offhand Sword you need to own the Secrets of the Obscure expansion.

• Free-to-play players are going to have to play Scepter/Warhorn instead of Scepter/Pistol.

Elite

• Summon Flesh Golem - the idea here is to use a worse elite, but exploit the low CD with Relic of the Nightmare for another long duation AoE fear proc.

Signet Variant

This is a more offensive version of the build with better boon removal and some much needed Quickness on a build full of slow attacks, but you have to cut a defensive specialization for Spite:

• Heal: Signet of Vampirism

• Utilities: Signet of Spite + Plague Signet, 3rd slot is an optional slot.

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Specializations

Variants

• Banshee's Wail could slightly improve your Warhorn Fear duration at the expense of survivability and group utility. This is also giving you better Swiftness uptime so you may even consider droping Rune of the Lynx for something stronger (like Rune of Necromancer), although this'd still leave you vulnerable to boon removal.

Variants

• If you feel like you're not getting enough value out of Dhuumfire in your games because you often find yourself Life Force starved or focused by the enemy team and don't have opportunities to use shroud autos, then consider picking up Eternal Life instead. Eternal Life is a decent defensive CD in general, especially in a build that doesn't have a lot of instant cast defensive abilities.

DM Variant

Death Magic over Blood Magic is also a viable option. Both of these are strong defensive specializations, DM offers better damage mitigation and condition cleansing while BM adds extra healing and group utility to the build:

Spite Signet Variant

Take Spite instead of Blood Magic if you're playing with signets:

Equipment

Scepter

Sword

Sigil

Sigil

Staff

Sigil

Sigil

Rune

Amulet

Relic

Equipment Variants

Mobility options

It's recommended that you use either Rune of the Lynx, Relic of the Wayfinder, or offhand Warhorn for a mobility boost. These all have their pros and cons:

• Rune of Lynx - allows you to run Sword and whatever relic you'd like. Relic of the Demon Queen for example provides some extra pressure, a cover condition that's always applied when you do Fear chains, and the extra healing reduction makes it harder for enemies to resustain.

• Relic of the Wayfinder - it's a bit better mobility option than Rune of the Lynx and you can run Sword with it all the same. You sacrifice your relic slot and the powerful bonuses that could come with that, but get to play runes with better stats like Rune of Necromancer which could increase your overall damage.

• Warhorn offers Swiftness which is better than both the rune and the relic for mobility, but it doesn't give you permanent uptime on it and being a boon it can be countered by boon removal, whereas the rune and relic bonuses are also active. With Warhorn however you get to play better runes and relics.

Usage

General

• Positioning: Necromancer sustain is far from great. Keep out of melee range whenever possible and abuse spots which break teleport skills to make it harder to get to you. Don't stand on capture points unless you absolutely have to.

• All of your marks are unblockable and generate Life Force.

• Never spam your marks on the ground out of combat - they are easy to spot and a single dodge from the enemy can get rid of them. The only exception can be Mark of Blood (because it's not a key skill and has a low CD), which you can freely place at an entrance or under yourself to potentially give away Stealthed enemy movement.

• Both weapon sets have access to unblockable CC skills (when playing with Warhorn): Reaper's Mark on Staff and Wail of Doom on Scepter/Warhorn.

• Locust Swarm can act as a counter to Blind when used in melee range of any enemy. This skill frequently pulses damage around you which can "consume" the blind on you, causing a tick of Locust Swarm to miss instead of some important skill you're casting.

Damage

• The build is all about keeping targets constantly pressured before finishing them off with Fear chains. Fear is the strongest damaging condition in the build thanks to Terror.

• Scepter/Warhorn is a bit more bursty while Staff is more of a utility weapon used to snare targets, transfer conditions, and CC/build Life Force from range.

• Feast of Corruption is a strong burst skill but only when used on targets with at least 4-5 different conditions. It also corrupts a boon which means with a little luck this could add another source of Fear to the build.

• Summon Flesh Golem is taken for its Relic of the Nightmare synergy because this is the shortest CD core Necromancer elite skill. The Fear proc itself has a delay and should go off after the Golem's Charge, which means it won't override the knockdown.

• There are 5 sources of Fear in the build, try chaining them together when you're going for the kill on an already pressured target:
  • Either Relic of the Nightmare when playing with Flesh Golem or Ripple of Horror when using Lich Form.
  • Doom - Shroud #3.
  • Wail of Doom - Warhorn #4 OR Devouring Visage - Sword #5.
  • Reaper's Mark - Staff #5.
  • Spectral Ring - utility skill. The ring applies Fear whenever an enemy crosses it, and you could force them to cross by using other sources of Fear on them. The duration of Fear stacks.

• Both the Scepter and Pistol autoattacks are far superior to Staff's in terms of damage. Scepter could even apply Poison for healing reduction.

• Putrid Mark is a Blast finisher, you may combo this with Chillblains for AoE Weakness or Spectral Ring for AoE Chaos Armor.

Sustain

• The build has above average condition cleansing by Necromancer standards.

• Both entering and exiting shroud removes conditions thanks to Plague Sending and Unholy Martyr.

• Spectral Walk (SW) is great for preventing condition pressure from ramping up on you. Activating its chain skill which "ends" Spectral Walk does not stop the cleansing. This skill has many uses, for example:
  • Activate SW ⇒ jump off a cliff while being chased ⇒ Spectral Recall when your enemies jump after you.
  • Activate SW ⇒ Necrotic Traversal (if using Flesh Wurm) ⇒ teleport back when they catch up to you. This works for stomping downed enemies as well, the channeling isn't interrupted by either of these teleports!

• Summon Flesh Wurm should be placed well before entering combat, preferably at a spot where your enemies can't reach it easily. Wurm provides you with an escape route and makes it easier to travel around the map in general. Last but not least, teleporting to the wurm with Necrotic Traversal grants 10% life force, which means you could consider using the teleport before even leaving spawn at the start of a game in order to start off with enough LF for a Death Shroud activation.

• Even at maximum LF you may consider activating Spectral skills before entering death shroud. The added LF generation and sustain can prolong its duration significantly.

• Consume Conditions is more of a last resort option that should only be used at or below ~50% HP and when other forms of cleansing/healing won't suffice.

Top Streamers

• Twitch: Naru

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Related Builds

• Core Condition Roamer - the WvW Roaming version of this sPvP build.