Curse

SOTY731 · Aug 01, 2007, 01:18 AM // 01:18

i've been playing guild wars for about a year, but i've stuck to playing my warrior, ranger, and dervish; my necro is my first caster

im just looking for any tips people have for me playing a necro and what my role is while im playing through the game, excluding elite areas and pvp (i know in many areas it's a mm or ss, but i'm unsure of what a necro is most useful for in pve) i looked at the necro basics thread in this section but most of the builds posted there seemed outdated, and i'm not sure if i can trust them, or the build on pvxwiki

i also have no idea how i should use runes and insignias on a caster (i'm thinking radiant insignias for everything, unless a specific build requires something else, but im not sure) like i said, i've never played a caster before so i dont know what runes i should be using for making my way through the different campaigns, so if anyone can tell me key skills/builds i should be using i could really use the advice

basically im just looking for a quick summary on how to play a necro...

i have all three campaigns so i can use any skills...

thanks...

Zodiak · Aug 01, 2007, 12:57 PM // 12:57

Well for armor i definatly go all energy, no matter what I play necro as.

Here is a quick summary as you asked

Blood Necro: Deals very big direct damage, armor ignoring, sacrifices health, i find costs a bit more energy to play as and a bit harder in pve.

Death Necro: Typically reffered to as a Minion Master but doesnt have to be, I enjoy playing MM though. I find the role of a MM is several. First i find it to bring chaos to ennemy mobs, throwing them off and splitting them up. Second would be to absorb damage through minions, having them target minions instead of party members. Third would be to just block incomming mobs before they can get to squishy line-backers. Fourth would be to spread conditions, either through bleeding minions, death nova or some other spell and lastly would be through sheer damage, because no matter what people can say, 10 minions comming at you just makes you wet your pants

Curses Necro: Mostly deals indirect damage, good at shutting/interupting down both melee and casters alike depending on choice of skills. Will normally but not always, deal damage only after the ennemy doing an action. Good for offensive or defensive.

The builds you will encounter are Minion Master, Spiteful Spirit Necro and Spoil Victor necro though there are many more.

Pick Me · Aug 01, 2007, 01:06 PM // 13:06

In non-elite areas, groups will be looking for SS and MM and some SV.

If you MM, obviously get superior DM rune, probably the + energy insignias.

Certain areas have plenty of corpses, others have almost none. So as long as you remember which quest/missions have corpses and which don't, that will help you determine what build you should use.

Bosses have condition and hex duration reduced on them, so make sure you equip yourself approriately.

Soul Reaping is a major attribute to have points in, so make sure you always have plenty into it.

Don't rely on one trick pony skills (like Lingering Curse), as they may not be very useful to you.

Before you get any elites, Blood Magic is a great attribute to start with. Personally, I don't like to use Death Magic until much later in the game, as MMing takes a lot of energy to maintain an army, Death Magic limits the amount of undead you can control.

You'll find targeting your minions to be difficult (Castin Death Nova, Jagged Bones, Dwayna's Sorrow, Taste of Death), so don't get frustrated if you can't do it well (everyone finds it difficult).

There are a variety of builds for MMing, SS, and SV.

If you wish to be a support caster, utilize Well of Power, Well of Blood, Blood Bond, BiP, or BR. You can also use Well of Suffering, Tainted Flesh, Mark of Pain, Orders, etc.

Also, sacrificing is not damage, so don't cast spells that will trigger if your health goes down to X or spells that trigger if you take damage (such as Illusion of Weakness or Reversal of Fortune). Also, you can sacrifice yourself to death, so watch your health.

Zodiak · Aug 01, 2007, 03:33 PM // 15:33

Another debatable concept is

If your playing Minion Master and are healing your minions with the use of Blood of the Master, I use a Superior Death Magic rune but no Vigor runes. As a Minion Master, most people use Blood of the Master which heals your minions considerably, but also takes a chunk of your health. You can find yourself low on health if you need to spam it a few times in heavy battle. Seeing as the lower health from no Vigor Rune, the amount of that health sacrificed gets reduced significantly though I am still very capable of going into battle thanks to the skills below.

[skill]dark bond[/skill]
Which under Blood Magic though you barely need to touch the attribute. Gives you 75% protection from damage.

and

[skill]infuse condition[/skill]
which transfers a condition you get infected with to your closest minion

It is also worth mentioning that, unlike most other professions, having a +1 (20%) Death mod on your weapon does considerably more for you. If you think about it, a +1(20%) mod for other professions is single use short duration and then its gone. For a minion master your +1 is concrete, you have a physical ally of superior force for an extended duration of time that both has more health and deals more damage, not to mention considerably larger in size, which also affects your Blood of the Master and since you spam minions like no tomorrow, that +1 comes up frequently.

IMPORTANT! If you ever encounter in a Mission, group, etc. ANOTHER minion master... BEWARE of your Blood of the Master. Although the skill may be fine up to 10 Minions, the health sacrifice INCREASES from 25% sacrifice for 10 minions, to 45% sacrifice for 20 minions.

SOTY731 · Aug 02, 2007, 04:44 AM // 04:44

cool, thanks for all the advice; think i understand necro in pve now

nardhelain · Aug 17, 2007, 05:45 PM // 17:45

Something that hasn't been addressed is positioning. If you are playing a blood, curses, or non-mm death necro, you should be a midline player, similar to your ranger. However, if you are playing minion master, you have two jobs: 1. Raise the army and keep it going. 2. DO NOT DIE. There is no single character in the game who can cause as much trouble by dying as the minion master. If you are playing mm, you should take a backline position with the healers and stay out of trouble as best you can.

ZenRgy · Aug 18, 2007, 03:09 AM // 03:09

In PvE (where you're playing MM) it's very, very hard to die. Even without builds such as Heir of the Master. As long as you run 2 monks (hero/hench) you should be fine.

populationcontrol · Aug 18, 2007, 03:16 AM // 03:16

i like runing necro up with hp over 620 even in pve and take up a secondary like warrior to allow me to use heals requiring no energy but hardly anyone does this. yet for pve i have to say best skills, especially for killing bosses are ss and spoil victor most places. mm is also really usuable in pve areas where things drop corpses. death and curses are strong pve skills but tend to be useless in pvp if you decide to switch.

Stormlord Alex · Aug 18, 2007, 09:47 AM // 09:47

Quote:

Originally Posted by populationcontrol

death and curses are strong pve skills but tend to be useless in pvp if you decide to switch.

Actually, Curses is the strongest PvP line the Necro has; nothing else can compare to the sheer melee shutdown it offers.

MBP · Aug 18, 2007, 08:16 PM // 20:16

If going blood I'll run [skill]spoil victor[/skill]

Going MM it'll be either [skill]animate flesh golem[/skill]
[skill]order of undeath[/skill] with [skill]animate vampiric horror[/skill]
or [skill]aura of the lich[/skill]

Curses it's usually [skill]spiteful spirit[/skill]

populationcontrol · Aug 18, 2007, 08:31 PM // 20:31

yeah pvp curses is good but it requirees skill and is not a beginners best bet (really good to kill monks). yet ss in my opninion is terrible in pvp (you cant really focus on meelee till youve killed the monk which will remove ss easily) and is more purely pve.

ZenRgy · Aug 18, 2007, 09:18 PM // 21:18

Quote:

Originally Posted by populationcontrol

yeah pvp curses is good but it requirees skill and is not a beginners best bet (really good to kill monks). yet ss in my opninion is terrible in pvp (you cant really focus on meelee till youve killed the monk which will remove ss easily) and is more purely pve.

How much skill can it honestly take it to pick your target, mash your keyboard and stack hexes on them, pick a new target and do the same?

populationcontrol · Aug 18, 2007, 10:12 PM // 22:12

harder than casting spells that heal you or regen your health. my point is curses necro is good in pvp but you die easier (regardless of how much more effective damage is)

besides for a new comer choosing the right hexes might be hard

ZenRgy · Aug 18, 2007, 11:32 PM // 23:32

Hence why in any "PvP" I play or any smart caster plays where they won't have healers they bring skills like [skill]Feigned Neutrality[/skill]. Curses themselves are very defensive against martial classes anyway.

As for which hexes, can't go wrong with:

Price of Failure
Spiteful Spirit
Faintheartedness
Reckless Haste
Corrupt Enchantment
Insidious Parasite
Parasitic Bond
Suffering.

All of these are pretty damn decent.

SotiCoto · Aug 20, 2007, 11:55 AM // 11:55

A Curses Necro with [skill]Spiteful Spirit[/skill] and [skill]Insidious Parasite[/skill] will be able to rape most enemies (especially mobs) in PvE quite nicely.

Furthermore, throw [skill]Reckless Haste[/skill] on Spiteful Spirit targets and [skill]Enfeeble[/skill] on Insidious Parasite targets for extra fun.

Finally, top off all hex-smotherings with [skill]Parasitic Bond[/skill]... just in case.

There ya go.
The base of a perfectly workable PvE necro.
Spoil Victor seems to be better for PvP due to enemies being tougher and more spread out (though ensure you don't have too much health).

I'd advise against messing around with Minion Mastery unless you like micromanagement.

Moloch Vein · Aug 20, 2007, 06:55 PM // 18:55

Reckless Haste has been nerfed silly and is now not a viable skill anymore.

MMing is very simple with the right build. Much more so than playing an offensive Curses caster.

ZenRgy · Aug 20, 2007, 07:30 PM // 19:30

Reckless Haste is still viable, it just requires more active play.

Cathode_Reborn · Aug 20, 2007, 08:34 PM // 20:34

Quote:

Originally Posted by Moloch Vein

Reckless Haste has been nerfed silly and is now not a viable skill anymore.

I wouldn't really call it a nerf.....it had it's recharge reduced by 13 secs and the lower casttime helps too. Since soul reaping trigger's so much in pve, the energy isn't always a problem. It can be effectively used to reduce damage in HM, compared to the old recharge where if it's removed or enemies spread out as you're casting it, you have to wait a pretty long time to reapply it.

Moloch Vein · Aug 21, 2007, 01:03 AM // 01:03

When the skill was 10e for 10 seconds, I thought "fine, I can live with that." Now it costs more than 1e per second to maintain, which is truly ridiculous, given that it's also been weakened. Let me remind you, this skill used to be 10e for 21 seconds. Now it's 15e for 12 and the miss chance is 2% lower in all PvE Curses builds. At the same time Soul Reaping has been severely weakened. It's been nerfed silly.

If the monsters "spread out" enough to lose effect while you are casting an area-wide hex spell you aren't casting it correctly.

I have switched Reckless for Enfeebling Blood in all builds now and I'm much happier.

ZenRgy · Aug 21, 2007, 08:08 AM // 08:08

I'm still running it and spamming it on recharge and I'm not seeing any energy problems.

It's been nerfed yes, but it's not unusable, like I said it just requires more active play, in PvE - stuff dies fast, and you should have a decent SR investment, so the low recharge just means you can put it everywhere.

But Enfeebling blood is good too, I just have both on my bar.