Curse

parasite doll · Jun 22, 2009, 05:26 PM // 17:26

I'm fairly new to GW and I'm trying to decide what to take as a secondary profession for my Necromancer. I notice /Me and /Mo are popular, as well as /E. I'm interested in /W but I have no idea if that combination would be a bad idea. Could someone with more experience list the pros/cons for me?

Bob Slydell · Jun 22, 2009, 05:41 PM // 17:41

Generally, you don't HAVE to use a secondary profession. It's just there to give you more of a choice as far as making builds go, but you don't have to use the secondary profession. So you could just run some effective Necromancer builds and ignore the second profession altogether. It all works out.

I never really use a second profession on my necro so i couldn't really tell ya whats good and what isn't.

for N/Me: Maybe degen skills combined with necro skills
for N/Mo: Heal Area for minions
for N/W: Don't really see this being used much, as you want to be a caster mostly
for N/E: I guess nuking fire spells + necro spells

If you are from Nightfall or Factions, you won't get stuck with your secondary profession forever, as not long after you leave the islands of either game you can change that secondary profession. Prophicies (the first one) you would have to wait till 75% of the game was done (when you reach the desert to ascend) before you could change it. Choosing a secondary profession isn't permanent btw.

Rivenheart · Jun 22, 2009, 06:12 PM // 18:12

Because of the Necromancer's primary attribute Soul Reaping provides excellent energy management, they have a lot of versatility in using secondary spell casting professions to adapt to any need or situation. While a Necromancer cannot heal as much as a primary Monk, or deal the same damage as a primary Elementalist, they are able to spam more skills without as high a regard for energy management. Obviously, this would not benefit a secondary Warrior or Ranger profession as much, but a Necromancer can provide a lot of versatility without using a secondary, so if you've found you've made a mistake by taking N/W, you won't be hindered until you can change your secondary. Taking a caster-class secondary would be the better choice here.

Shursh · Jun 22, 2009, 06:12 PM // 18:12

In general, N/W is a bad idea. W/N is better.

Soul Reaping lets a necro run any secondary pretty well, especially if it is a caster class.

/W, /R, /P are all ok in specific builds.

/A is great for Assassin's Promise.

Malla13 · Jun 22, 2009, 06:16 PM // 18:16

Well, my necromancer has mesmer as her secondary, but I've currently got an E/W who's halfway to the survivor title, so caster/melee is possible and quite an entertaining challenge.

And as was already stated, the secondary professions aren't permanent and can be completely ignored if you so choose.

N/Mo might make your gameplay a bit easier if you're really new, since the monk skills help necros heal themselves and others (including minions) and that can give you a good starting niche in a party's support role. But there's certainly nothing wrong with choosing any of the others. It just depends on your personal preferences and play style. Necromancers are especially versatile, and you can always change things around later in the game.

PahaLukki · Jun 22, 2009, 06:35 PM // 18:35

Oh my god... Here goes my rant and overall experience of GW. You prompted it with N/W. My opinion: necrowarrior is crap. My first character was a warrior and my second one a necrowarrior. That N/W was deleted somewhere mid-shiverpeaks. I was wielding a sword and casting blood spells or raising minions. At some point it was pointed out to me, and it became blatantly obvious to me, what kind of game this is. This is not Diablo. This is not Morrowind. You cannot be a spellcasting warrior-jack-of-all-trades-hero. And warriors in this game suck anyway. Although as a caster you cannot cast AoE spells on ground, they are still stronger, as most spells cast relatively fast, the effect is instantaneous (taking no time to travel) and the only real interrupters are other ranged threats like mesmers and rangers. Warriors are completely unneeded unless you need someone to knockdown or maybe deal damage, but the warriors are often shutdown both PvE and PvP.. .stupid warriors. Most likely a water-hexing elementalist will do snaring and holding better anyway... I'd suggest PvXwiki to get a grasp of the builds around. N/Me, Mo and Rt are good in my opinion. With Me you have access to interrupts which are good for the player character to have in face of "ZOMGCHEATS"-creatures that like to cast long cast time monster spells (like Glint). Monk secondary gives you ability to protect, buff or heal. Ritualist has a more energy-economic heal: Protective Was Kaolai. Being a healing protagonist isn't all that bad, since you should be able to prioritize healing better than any AI can, and the AI can do the button mashing to dish damage to your called target (ctrl + space on target).

To understand the game, essentially it has superbly weak base attacks. Warrior can hit all it can on caster at melee range, but the caster will keep casting and is also not slowed down if it attempts to run. Plain arrows or wand attacks are similarly useless. Power is in the skills, the numbers 1-8 and their respective recharges together with your incoming adrenaline or regaining energy define your character's power curve. That curve cannot be overcome or exceeded by any way of better play. But, you can maximize your potential. For example if you use suffering which is AoE degeneration hex, trying to max the amount of targets that are hit by the AoE will max the potential of the spell's recharge and energy cost. That is, you should aim for skills and spells that can be maximized in potential through the use of the skill. Mostly AoE spells on clumped targets, or massive spreading of conditions with a single preparation cycle of apply poison, and other similar skills. This is effectively called pressure and the enemy counters it with a monk, so it is good to slay the monk first in a spike.

Another loophole in this scheme is the necromancer soul reaping, which is an effective fuel source when combined with bone minions that raises 2 minions per corpse. With it, each dead monster gives 3x soul reaping worth of energy, that can be as much as 45 energy, which is quite extraordinary, but only helps in battles against multiple foes. Additionally, using Dwayna's Sorrow on the minions will propably give an additional 40-70 health to each party member per monster (that was raised as minions and enchanted with Dwana's). Otherwise necro's extra energy would be worthless, without anything to spend it on, but it should come as no suprise that one of the most popular necrospells is Discord: a direct-damage spell with a recharge of 2 seconds and good damage (up to 100 or so). Giving an effective spike and good damage for the recharge and energy spent. But still, noting the limited effect of gameplay, no cast on ground ability and the overall limited nature of the recharge/energy cost architechture, this hints that in any given encounter, most likely the one to have more casting entities will be the winner. This makes aggroing important as you cannot plow your way through a larger mob no matter how good at the game you think you are - thus raising the question is this anymore a game of skill, or more a game of recharges and energy costs being pitted against each other with a rock paper scissors element to it.

Other than that I used a N/W with riposte, deadly riposte, enfeebling touch, plague signet, foul feast, healing signet, faintheartedness and balanced stance... successfully in Aspenwood. Basically foul feast all your teammates and send the shits you feast to your enemies. Confront all warriors and assassins, but use balanced stance first (as they all are knockdown lamers anyway), enfeeble them, faintheart them and riposte them to death.. Don't forget to plague signet the bleeding, deep wound and cripple that warriors or sins give you.

Hatchet Child · Jun 22, 2009, 06:41 PM // 18:41

If he's fairly new to the game. What makes you think he's gonna read your wall of text?

N/W is a bad idea. In the Concept of someone new at the game you're probably thinking N/W with axes or swords, Don't bother you'll only hate the class every time you're on the floor dead.

Just go with all the others. N/Me for Echo (though it's not the best choice, but the only decent one) N/Mo for Self heals and using Heal Area for When your going Minion Master.

Xenomortis · Jun 22, 2009, 06:52 PM // 18:52

Quote:

Originally Posted by PahaLukki

Massive wall of symbols

Add some line drops in there; people are more inclined to read your arguments fully if it's in a format that's easy to read and doesn't look like mindless ranting.
What you've done doesn't negate anything you say, it just means your message is less likely to be read.

With regards to the OP:

You say yourself, you're fairly new to the game. It really does not matter what secondary you pick, it's generally not very useful to delve into your secondary lines anyway.
The warrior line has virtually nothing to offer a necromancer, but don't let that stop you.
I would recommend the Ele or Monk lines (for Glyph of Lesser Energy or a hard res respectively). You will recieve the option to change your secondary later in the game, so don't worry if you feel like you've made a bad choice.

Eddie Frenzy Spam · Jun 22, 2009, 07:39 PM // 19:39

Quote:

Originally Posted by PahaLukki

And warriors in this game suck anyway.

I stopped reading here.

The only thing N/W is good for is shield bash in PvP.

R.Subutai · Jun 22, 2009, 07:52 PM // 19:52

Quote:

Originally Posted by PahaLukki

-And warriors in this game suck anyway. Although as a caster you cannot cast AoE spells on ground, they are still stronger, as most spells cast relatively fast, the effect is instantaneous (taking no time to travel) and the only real interrupters are other ranged threats like mesmers and rangers.
-Warriors are completely unneeded unless you need someone to knockdown or maybe deal damage, but the warriors are often shutdown both PvE and PvP.. .stupid warriors. Most likely a water-hexing elementalist will do snaring and holding better anyway...

You need to PvP mooooaaarrrrrr. I'd like you to explain in another three paragraph rant how it's possible to run any kind of viable balanced GvG or HA, with a full team of "squishies"; and don't give me some gimmick or craptacular build that you'll have to spec in order to use. You talk as if PvP is all 1v1 "dueling"; without taking into account how practical warriors can be when supported by other professions in the group (e.g PnH monks for hex-spam). Look at the builds in every single meta to see how truly useful warriors are (here's only a FEW):
-Erffshakur? It wrecks havoc on the back-line and can incapacitate protters or infusers on spikes.
-Whirling axe and Magehunter's Smash can shit-face stance users and monks in RA. Quarter-knocking paired with skills like shock and disrupting chop can make casters rage and other front-liners hit their heads against their keyboards in a fit of rage if you can line-back properly.
-I don't even need to explain and show how prevalent warriors are in monthly GvG Championship's and HoH.

AND, don't give me the sub-par, redundant and silly excuse that meta builds are lamesauce. It's the ENTIRE Guild Wars community of great PvP-ers that develops and tests these builds for viability and efficiency. There are the few exceptions of non-meta builds that remain efficient. If a better option exists or arises, meta tends to shift.

Lux Aeterna · Jun 22, 2009, 07:53 PM // 19:53

Look just go N/W and bring shield bash, or N/Mo for a hard rez.

Most builds don't use their secondaries very much.

Your build should look like this:

[Long line of good hexes][shield bash][rez]

Alternatively:

[aura of the lich][animate bone minions][death nova][blood of the master][dark bond][shield bash][rez]

Don't bother with sword skills, don't bother with mesmer hexes. Just make a necro build and throw shield bash on, unless you want to be fancy and play a sabway healer or something but don't.

www.pvxwiki.com for build reference.

IronSheik · Jun 22, 2009, 08:40 PM // 20:40

2nd Profession On Necro Rarely matters, Especially human, if anything, Go Assassin for Assassin's Promise.

dusanyu · Jun 22, 2009, 08:53 PM // 20:53

/W is only useful for defensive stances on casters but if your being pummeled by physicals in PvE one of two things are happening 1 you need a better front line or 2 your positioning is bad and you deserve to be killed anyway

and for you people saying warriors are bad obs mode more and tell me why Wars are So prevalent in REAL PVP

(and no i an mot talking about HA) oh and PahaLukki Bulls Strike Says Hi (Kite on your butt silly caster)

Helix Dreadlock · Jun 22, 2009, 08:59 PM // 20:59

Quote:

Originally Posted by parasite doll

I'm fairly new to GW and I'm trying to decide what to take as a secondary profession for my Necromancer. I notice /Me and /Mo are popular, as well as /E. I'm interested in /W but I have no idea if that combination would be a bad idea. Could someone with more experience list the pros/cons for me?

This for pve or pvp?

AngeliqueSynner · Jun 23, 2009, 12:46 AM // 00:46

As my guild leader says when people ask him advice.
"Give it a go, if it fails, you'll know for next time."

The people here probably know infinitely more than I do about practical class combinations, but to hell with practical if it's fun. :]

_Nihilist_ · Jun 23, 2009, 01:44 AM // 01:44

N/W isn't going to give you as many options as another secondary would, to be quite honest.

If you are in Random Arenas or possible Team Arenas, sure, the /W secondary gives you access to Shield Bash, Balanced Stance, and Defensive Stance, but that's about it.

In PvE, don't run a /W secondary. None of the skills that Warriors have access to are going to help you out. You'd be much better off running a pure Necro bar.

Smarty · Jun 23, 2009, 02:07 AM // 02:07

I'm trying to work out why you want to play a N/W, and what sort of playstyle you have in mind. Are you wanting to be there at the front line of battle with sword and shield in hand, raising minions at the same time? If so then it's certainly a fun-sounding idea but I think you'll find it doesn't work as well in practice as it sounds on paper.

The problem with being a caster primary on the front line is that you only get 60 armour as your max, compared with a warrior's 80, which makes a large amount of difference to how much energy your monks are going to have to spend on keeping you alive. You also won't be able to put any points into strength, which will make some good skills impractical for you to use and will mean you won't get the extra damage from armour penetration.

You'll certainly be able to manage this playstyle at first when the enemies aren't so hard or so numerous, but as things get tougher you'll find it increasingly difficult. Eventually you'll more than likely be wanting to be at the back casting spells, at which point having another caster class as your secondary profession will open up your playstyle options a lot more than having a melee class as secondary.

With that said, if you want to try it anyway, there's nothing stopping you. You'll be able to change secondary sooner or later, depending on the campaign you start in, and necros can run plenty of good builds which don't require any skills from their secondary profession, so it's not going to mess you up permanently if you try the experiment and don't like it after all.

ZenRgy · Jun 23, 2009, 06:27 AM // 06:27

/E for glyph of lesser energy.

Arghore · Jun 29, 2009, 08:13 AM // 08:13

I've been trying for a pvp N/W build for quite some time now, as a Random Arena build; since it has spells like Barbs & Mark of Pain, which need physical damage to get triggered, but you cant always count on a melee char in your team or count on a War to follow your lead (and to have a weapon that actually does the damage you need for the trigger);

Also, as a Necro you are bound to be the one of the first targets to be attacked (other then the monk) by melee figthers, mainly because a necro has such weak armor; Hence i thought about a melee necro, to atleast fight back on melee ground.

Problems arise when you considder that, to activate your sword/axe to do damage, and your shield for armor, you need to raise both to 9 points, which will obviously weaken your Necromancer powers as you cant use Runes for a Warrior, and any points spend on Tactics and Swordmastery cant be spend on your necro powers.

The only way to then still have necro power is to use Superior / Major runes, lowering your Health which does not give an advantage in fighting Warior tanks with a huge amount of health. Only way to heal yourself would be to go for Bloodmagic (vampiric spirit elite, looks like it is great for a N/W) but this means you cannot bennefit from the Curses Barbs & Mark of Pain. Which for a large part looks like a good reason to go for a N/W. Also, if your VS is interupted or bashed you wont have any HP regen at all...

Taking other bloodmagic healthstealing spells would then be the obvious choise, but since you are wielding melee weapons you dont have access to energy buffs and you will run outof energy to cast these spells very soon...

I have tried Hexers Vigor from Soul Reaping to have an extra HP regen, the problem with this is that this stops the moment you cast anything but a Hex. So any stance you might want to use to get more HP from using a Vampiric weapon is going to end your heal. As is any Warrior attack skill you might want to use, to kill the melee fighter befor he gets you, but the moment you use the skill, your HP regen ends...

Then there is the conditions problem you run into when going for melee fighting, as you are bound to atleast run into, bleeding/Deepwounds. Now all the return conditions spells for Necro are in curses, the obvious choise would be to take plague touch with a very low attribute to curses (so you can spend atleast a decent amount on blood magic / soulreaping). But as plague touch is a spell and not a hex, this stops your Hexers Vigor and you are going down...

Im pretty sure that, if you have a good team with healers to support you as a N/W, you can pull off a build that works pretty decent. But for Random Arenas you can't controll your team and so you can't count on this to happen..

Then there is also the following, since your main profession is Necro and you have low armor and lowish HP (esp. if running a N/W), people in say a TeamArena will kick you outof the team for being a silly bunny trying to be a War as a Necro. As people expect a necro to Hex, MM and Feast/Send Conditions (even Bloodspike builds are mainly 'reserved' for Necro only teams)...

This is also a reason why there are so little Smiting Monks around, since the moment people see a Mo, they expect them to heal, if they dont heal they are mainly declared to be a silly bunny (though i have seen 'stronger' words used aswell), and the moment you use those heals you did bring, for healing yourself when not smiting, can also be used on your allies, and you find yourself healing the team and you might aswell not have gone smiting...

So especially if (like you say) you are new to this game, i would advice you to go for a different 2e prof then /W ..

I thought about making a W/N instead, the problem there is(/was), that since you are now a melee type you hardly have any energy to cast and a large part of the necro spells become 'useless' and since you cant use any runes to bring any necro Atribute above 12 your spells will be mediocre at best. And raising a necro attribute to 12 will weaken your warrior attributes, so you'll mostlikely be a mediocre War aswell. I must admit though this is reasoned from the Necro side, as like i said, i have not tried the W/N extensively...

Techpriest · Jul 25, 2009, 03:47 PM // 15:47

I am fairly new to the game and have gotten a NW up to Level 14.

I mostly only play PVE. 80% solo, 20% pick-up-groups.

I start off casting a ranged attack to soften my target and to give my minions and henchmen something to focus on. I then charge in and use my sword to do some additional damage as well as inflict conditions. I use Vampiric Touch to hurt my target and keep my life up every time it is open. Since I am using adrenaline for my sword attacks I get to cast VT pretty frequently, nothing is competing with it for energy. Plus my Bone Horrors are running around doing damage and giving the enemies something to chase besides me.

This has worked very well and I find I can even stand up to groups without to much trouble. My NW dies less often than any other caster I have tried. I just love VT, it seems to make up for my lack of armor. I carry a shield so I am a little better protected than most Necros.

While trying out a caster first and second, such as Necro/Ele or Ranger/Caster I was finding myself with 8 skills all drawing from the same energy bar. So I spent more time waiting, than actually doing something. Like I have heard many people say, don't worry about the second class, you will never use most of the skills. With NW I get to use two different sets of skills that draw from two different energy pools.

Tried War/Necro and it was a totally different character. I was always thirsty for energy so instead of a VT spam monster, hitting the key every time the skill was available again, that was also hitting you with a sword, it became a warrior that every once in a while could slip a VT into the mix. Not very exciting at the low levels. Maybe that changes? Not impressed with the Warriors looks either, boring.

For skills I favor Death and Blood magic for my VT and Minions. I keep my Swordsmanship skill fairly low, but do put some points in it.

Bonus, I can't find another character my level that looks as cool as a Necro holding a sword and shield (personal opinion).

So at what point does all the doom and gloom kick in? I expect one of these days I will walk into an area and go, "OK, this is what they were talking about." Is it all End Game issues? Mostly PVP problems? Or am I only a few levels away from my entire build falling apart?