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 November 05, 2023 and is up to date for the November 07, 2023 game 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/Warhorn

Staff

Utility

Skill Variants

Weapons

• Pistol over Scepter - Pistol is a faster weapon, which is quite handy in a build infamous for its long cast times. It works better under pressure and requires less setup, but while the extra CC is quite strong, you do have to give up a boon corruption for it which could otherwise be used to turn Stability into Fear (your most important condition). The only real weakness of Pistol is its reliance on projectiles, this could make it harder for you to pressure certain specs like support Tempests. Pistol is usually worth it, but requires the Secrets of the Obscure and End of Dragons expansions so it's not an option for F2P players.

Elite

• - adds burst damage to the build and has some Fear synergy, but doesn't work quite as well with due to its long CD. It's still a good option but you should look for a different relic, like Evasion or Fractal.

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Specializations

Variants

• could slightly improve your Warhorn Fear duration at the expense of survivability and group utility.

Equipment

Scepter

Warhorn

Sigil

Sigil

Staff

Sigil

Sigil

Rune

Amulet

Relic

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 (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: on Staff and on Scepter/Warhorn.

• Entering Shroud triggers . If you're CC'd and getting focused you can enter shroud to rip boons and apply Weakness as a defensive measure.

• 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 .

• 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.

• 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.

• is taken for its 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:
  • - use your elite skill to proc this once every 30 seconds.
  • - Shroud #3.
  • - Warhorn #4.
  • - Staff #5.
  • - 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.

• The Sceper autoattack chain is far superior to Staff's in terms of damage, it could even apply Poison for healing reduction.

• is a Blast finisher, you may combo this with for AoE Weakness or for AoE .

• Shroud burst rotation (in melee range this doubles as a defensive rotation):

1. to proc
3. just before Dark Path reaches the target
6. Spam

Sustain

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

• Both entering and exiting shroud removes conditions thanks to and .

• (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 ⇒ when your enemies jump after you.
  • Activate SW ⇒ (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!

• 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 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 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.

• 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

• Twitch: Bel

Related Builds

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